Polish Name Generator
Full Polish names with the right letters and the right surname endings: modern baby names, the classic names of parents and grandparents, or old Slavic names ending in -sław and -mir.
- Nadia Lipińska
- Laura Dudek
- Nikodem Kowalewski
- Robert Jaworski
- Alicja Król
- Natalia Jaworska
- Maja Ostrowska
- Iwona Zielińska
- Teresa Sobczak
- Wiktoria Kwiatkowska
- Bronisław Bąk
- Kazimiera Baran
- Jakub Szewczyk
- Mieczysława Tomaszewska
- Tymoteusz Sokołowski
- Sławomir Zawadzki
- Wanda Wysocka
- Marta Kaczmarek
- Zdzisław Kowalczyk
- Helena Czarnecka
How polish names work
A Polish name is a first name plus a surname, and the surname changes with the person. Surnames that work like adjectives, the ones ending in -ski, -cki and -dzki, take a feminine form in -ska, -cka and -dzka. Jan Kowalski's sister is Anna Kowalska, and that form is the one on her passport. Surnames that are plain nouns (Nowak, Wójcik, Mazur, Kowalczyk) stay the same for everyone. Polish speakers hear a mismatch instantly, so a woman called Kowalski in a novel reads as a mistake, not a choice.
The spelling carries the sound. Ł is said like an English w, so Łukasz is roughly WOO-kash. Sz is sh, cz is ch, rz and ż both sound like the s in pleasure, and ą and ę are nasal vowels. Drop the marks and you get a different name: Paweł without its ł is not Pawel to a Pole, and Wiśniewski loses its soft ś. Every name this generator builds keeps the diacritics, so copy it as it appears.
Popular Polish names across three generations
Polish first names change slowly and in clear waves. Babies born recently are often Zuzanna, Zofia, Hanna, Julia, Antoni, Jan, Aleksander or Franciszek, and old-fashioned names such as Stanisław, Kazimierz and Helena have come back into favor. Their parents are more likely to be Katarzyna, Agnieszka, Tomasz or Marcin, and their grandparents Krystyna, Halina, Zbigniew or Tadeusz. Pick the style that matches the year your character was born and the name will feel right to a Polish reader.
The Old Slavic style draws on pre-Christian compound names built from roots such as sław (glory), mir (peace), bog (god) and mił (dear). Bolesław, Radosław, Bogumiła and Dobromiła are all real names still used today, and several were carried by medieval kings. These names come in pairs, so almost every male form in -sław has a female twin in -sława.
Most Poles also have a name day (imieniny) tied to the saint's day for their first name, and in some families it is celebrated as much as a birthday. That is one reason saints' names such as Anna, Maria, Józef and Piotr stayed common for centuries.
Polish names worth borrowing, and what makes each one work
- Zofia WiśniewskaA current favorite first name with the third most common Polish surname, correctly in its feminine -ska form.
- Antoni KowalczykAntoni is a top baby name now; Kowalczyk ends in -czyk, so it would stay the same for his sister.
- Katarzyna NowakThe textbook Polish woman's name of the 1970s and 80s, paired with the country's most common surname.
- Tomasz LewandowskiTomasz is how Thomas is spelled in Polish; Lewandowski shows the full -owski ending that marks so many surnames.
- Łucja ZawadzkaStarts with the Ł that English speakers stumble on, and shows the -dzki to -dzka change.
- Bolesław KrólAn old royal Slavic first name with a surname that literally means king.
- Małgorzata CzarneckaMałgorzata is the Polish Margaret; the -cka ending is the feminine form of Czarnecki.
- Jakub MazurTwo short, common parts. Mazur also names a region and a folk dance.
- Bogumiła SokołowskaA Slavic name meaning roughly dear to God, with a surname built on sokół, the falcon.
- Franciszek DudekFranciszek has been near the top of recent lists; Dudek is also the Polish word for the hoopoe bird.
- Grażyna JabłońskaA name invented by the poet Adam Mickiewicz that became a mid-century hit. Now firmly a mother's name.
- Wojciech SikoraWojciech is the Polish form of Saint Adalbert, and a name few non-Poles can spell on the first try.
- Helena KwiatkowskaA classic that returned to baby-name lists; Kwiatkowska comes from kwiat, flower.
- Zbigniew WróbelA grandfather's name if ever there was one, with a surname meaning sparrow.
- Hanna ZielińskaShort, international first name and a surname from zielony, green.
- Ignacy PawlakIgnacy is a revived old name; Pawlak is patronymic, from Paweł.
- Radosław KamińskiThe -sław root means glory; Kamiński comes from kamień, stone. Friends shorten him to Radek.
- Jadwiga StępieńNamed for Poland's medieval queen and saint; Stępień does not change with gender.
- Mieszko OlszewskiMieszko was the first historical ruler of Poland, so the name signals a family proud of its history.
- Agnieszka KaczmarekCommon for women born in the 1980s; Kaczmarek originally meant an innkeeper.
- Szymon WysockiSzymon is the Polish Simon; Wysocki comes from wysoki, tall.
Getting a Polish name right
- Match the surname to the person. Any surname ending in -ski, -cki or -dzki becomes -ska, -cka or -dzka for a woman; noun surnames like Nowak do not change.
- Keep the diacritics. Ł, ś, ż, ź, ć, ń, ó, ą and ę are separate letters in Polish, and removing them changes both spelling and sound.
- Choose the first name by birth year. A 25-year-old Zbigniew is as unlikely as an American Gen Z named Herbert.
- Use the diminutive in dialogue. Poles call Katarzyna Kasia, Małgorzata Gosia, Aleksander Olek and Wojciech Wojtek, so a character who is always given the full name reads as distant or formal.
- Plural family names follow their own rules: the Kowalski family are the Kowalscy, and the Nowak family are the Nowakowie. Use this if your characters are talked about as a household.
Questions people ask
What are common Polish names?
Among adults, the most common first names include Anna, Maria and Katarzyna for women and Piotr, Krzysztof and Andrzej for men. For babies, names like Zuzanna, Zofia, Hanna, Antoni, Jan and Aleksander lead. Nowak, Kowalski and Wiśniewski are the most common surnames.
Why do Polish surnames end differently for men and women?
Surnames ending in -ski, -cki and -dzki are adjectives in form, and Polish adjectives agree with gender. So a man is Kowalski and a woman is Kowalska. Surnames that are nouns, such as Nowak or Wójcik, are the same for both.
What is the most common Polish last name?
Nowak is the most common Polish surname. It means a newcomer or new man, and it is used unchanged by both men and women. Kowalski (feminine Kowalska), from the word for a blacksmith, comes second.
Does this Polish name generator give gender-neutral names?
Polish has very few unisex first names, and surnames usually mark gender too. The Neutral setting therefore mixes male and female names rather than inventing forms Poles would not use. For a neutral-sounding option, choose a surname like Nowak or Mazur that never changes.
How do you pronounce Polish names like Łukasz or Wojciech?
Ł sounds like an English w, sz like sh, cz like ch and ch like the throaty h in loch. Łukasz is close to WOO-kash, Wojciech to VOY-chekh and Grzegorz to GZHEH-gosh. Stress falls on the second-to-last syllable in almost every Polish name.
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Sources
- Polish name, Wikipedia
Updated September 2026 · How these names are made