Did Polish fathers name their first son after their own name?

I know that during Imperial Russian times it appears common that the first born son carried the first name of the father. Is this a Polish tradition as well?

During my long life in Poland I have met only two families in which sons bore the same first name as their fathers. And whenever strangers learnt about it, they were surprised. So I can tell you it is not a Polish tradition today.

What I was going to say... I have no idea if it was a thing in the past, but it's absolutely not a thing now.

Not for Soviet (i.e., PRL-era) Poles and their post-Soviet descendants.

But for true heritage Poles (i.e., those whose families have an uninterrupted and uncorrupted passing down of Polish linguistic and cultural traditions forged in the 1st and 2nd Polish Republics) the naming convention was to give the first son the father's name.

A second son would be named after the child's grandfather on the father's side. A third son would be named after brothers on the father's side starting with the eldest. If none were available then the wife's father, brothers, etc. would be used.

What about confirmation names?

A first son's first name taken after the father would then take the grandfather's first name for the confirmation name.

A second son's first name taken after the grandfather would then take the father's first name for the confirmation name.

As you know true heritage Poles had large and strong families so there was never a shortage of inherited names to keep this tradition going.

For the current batch of occupants in Poland who call themselves Poles (and really only because they have a passport which says Poland but wouldn't care either way what country's name was on it) they do not have large and stable families so having traditions is rather pointless to them.

Divorce is rife in post-Soviet Poland and they don't have replacement levels of children (and that's for those who didn't already sneak off to Germany, France or the UK to have an abortion).

This is why many of these so-called Poles are so wildly enthusiastic about immigration from around the world. To have any culture in their lives they now have to import it.

But you are talking about Am Pollacks, obsessed with their "true" indentity which has little to do with real Poles.


Those are not traditions, they are obsessions of yours which make you one of viliest people on this planet. :)

Of course I intended to write the vilest. Sorry.

Got it in one.

His obsession with "being a true Pole" suggests that he has no identity of his own. Yet, strangely enough, for someone so obsessed with Poland and Polishness, he's showing a remarkably lack of will to move to Poland and to contribute to Polish society.

Boy, you done filled up the bathtub with crazy and now you're taking a good long soak.

It's quite interesting really, because he's making the claim that "pure Polish families" adopted Russian traditions.

Such fantasies are just that, fantasies.

Not necessarilly as the first name but it's quite common to use one's parents' or grandparents' first name as the child's middle name.

Notice OP's question. He doesn't have a clue about anything. Russians don't name they children after their father, they have this system that translated into English looks like that - Boris son of Ivan Putin.

Nothing like that in Poland.

Your contradictory posts never end.

How would you know what a "real Pole" is when you previously said you are "fully European"?

How can a PRL-era relic yourself with no connection to the 1st and 2nd Republics define what a "real Pole" is when dismiss the eras' traditions as "strange" to you; you openly oppose nationalism; you don't believe in territorial borders; and fully support diversity achieved through unlimited immigration from around the world?

It was already pointed out to you that the EU Soviet politburo party boss Macron publicly dismissed the notion of "true" nationalities because they don't exist.

Indeed, you personally endorsed that British immigrant DeepL/GoogleMaps-dependent Delphiandomine as somehow being "Polish" despite him never making even one of his over 17,000 posts in the po polsku section. DeepL Delph fully agreed with you that he is "Polish" and said he has a card to prove it! You never asked to see it but certainly demanded Richard Mazur prove himself to you which he did and you still dismissed him.

Both of you contradict yourselves because you can't call yourselves "real Poles" while at the same time condemning nationalism but cheerleading the European suprastate which itself rejects nationalism.

Indeed your so-called "fellow Pole" DeepL Delph gave his own full endorsement of Macron on here during his sham election. How odd that this British immigrant who celebrates diversity but deliberately lives in the whitest parts of Poland would fully endorse a globalist eurocrat in France and yet only months later most of that country has running riots and cities in flames due to public discontent.

You two also condemn nationalism at every turn for what you regard as it being "racist" while simultaneously championing Zionist ethno-state Israel and its criminal and abhorrent human rights record.

You two really do need to stop and do a hardcore self-assessment of yourselves because your words never match your actions. You two are not fooling anyone but only yourselves if you think no one notices your galling hypocrisy.

And yet he does. I think he means exactly what he says. The so-called "oтчество" in Russian has nothing to do with the OP's question.

Let's take the name of the President of the Russian Federation: Влади́мир Влади́мирович Пу́тин. We can only say that Putin's father was Vladimir, but we cannot guess if the president was the eldest son of his father. In fact, he wasn't. The name of the eldest son, who died at the age of 2, was Victor. So, there wasn't any such tradition in the case of the Russian president. On the other hand, if president Putin were indeed the eldest son, we could say the tradition was observed.


I think there is some truth in it. Perhaps it was not that common, but many families before the WW II and even more often before WW I followed this pattern.

During the early Piast era (the Middle Ages) the convention of this royal House was to give the eldest son the name of the father or grand-father, but only if they were not alive.

Yes, you can see frequent name repetition among Polish royals:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kings_of_Poland_family_tree

The church was closely linked to Royal families and gave them legitimacy through coronations, weddings and baptisms.

True church-attending heritage Polish families would learn about these conventions and emulate them thus tying all Poles together through wonderful and meaningful traditions as ancient as Poland itself.

Only PRL-era relics scoff, balk and dismiss such traditions. The church strongly opposed Communist rule in Poland and eventually won out in the struggle.

It is clear that many PRLers still alive today are still bitter over the loss of the privileges their communist party-member families enjoyed during their heyday and so reject any 1st and 2nd Polish Republic traditions as "strange".

What is your title for pronouncing who is and who isn't a "real Pole", prey tell?


Nationalist have never been popular in Poland, including the period of the Second Republic. The only MP coming from the nationalistic movement these days is one who managed to get there on the back of another party, Kukiz'15.


Can you point to a single post of yours in the "Po polsku" section?


Richard Mazur was an individual who could not prove his identity through facts other than those obtainable from the internet. For example, he could not tell the year in which his mother died, whereas I myself, not connected to his family in any way, could tell that precisely. Instead, he was producing fake images of his passport which could be easily created using internet tools.

Did it ever cross your mind that these ppl may simply dislike church? Not because of anything else but simply because of their actions and what they stand for?

Did it ever dawn on you that any chronic personal dislike for the church is still no reason for them to deny the 1st and 2nd Polish Republic family naming conventions which were lost during and after the PRL?

If they are ignorant of Poland's history then they shouldn't make erroneous statements implying that true heritage Polish traditions are "strange" and so never existed in Poland.

Instead, they should simply admit that they were given a Communist education which officially opposed religion and nationalism. And because of their communist indoctrination they don't know what really happened in the 1st and 2nd Polish Republics and so are not the rightful inheritors of true Poland.

I don't give a damn about the names as I find it extremely stupid to name a kid afrer a living parent. What I oppose is you connecting the church with it and claiming that ppl dislike church because of communism and they are not real Poles. One can be trully Polish yet dislike the church.

Wow! The Piasts didn't do that!

Yes, both could be confounded, so you needed the letter "W" to tell the difference :-)

You could help yourself a lot if you could follow along in the discussion.

I'm not the one making contradictory posts like calling myself "fully European", starting threads opposing nationalism and squawking about the need for diversity, and then saying who is and who isn't Polish and what is and what isn't a Polish tradition.


Your communist indoctrination is showing.


I've already been dismissed as not being Polish so there is nothing for me to prove. As pointed out Richard Mazur provided photo evidence and it was rejected as fake. He posted comments in Polish and that too wasn't good enough.

I never asked you anyway about the other poster's credibility. So your question posed to me is an act of interference and deflection and a demonstration of your sympathy for this other poster. You just want to take the heat off of someone who brags all the time of having lived in Poland for over a decade and carries the cards to prove he is Polish. Yet he is never asked to prove it and never does anyway. So what is he afraid of? Why are you afraid for him? :)

This is not indoctrination, these are bare facts.


This is a very handy excuse on your part.


It was fake. [You've gladly ommited the part where I said Mazur could not confirm his identity by telling when his mother died]


But I have asked you about your credibility and it seems to be... not too high?

Wow, what a great post(19). You are spot on.


maybe, I never heard about such tradition either in Russia or Poland or anywhere. However there were instances quite a few people were doing that be in Russia, Poland or America.

I suppose some if a lazy kid post some half backed question it would look like OP's post.


Bare assed assumptions. Not based on any facts. Before the war the vast majority of the Polish people supported ideas of Dmowski ND.

Funny that an innocent question might trigger such flood of antagonistic reactions. :):)

Oh wow. I have been away for two days.....I thought this was a straight forward question. Love the passion here.
I only ask because i read that (About the Russians naming boys somewhere). In Siberia my father and his Uncle were both named after their fathers (Both first boys). Although from parents of exiled Poles sent to Siberia (1864) they appear to have embraced/forced (Probably totally wrong word choice) the Russian way of life with the exception of religion where they stayed as Catholic.