Czech boy names
Czech builds its oldest names the way Polish does — two meaningful elements bolted together, so Vratislav is return plus glory and Lubomír is love plus peace — and then spells them with a set of hooks and accents invented in the fifteenth century to stop the page from filling up with digraphs. None of these names is in the current U.S. top 100, and one of them contains the consonant foreigners find hardest in any European language.
Traditional names: the two-element compounds
Same machine as the Polish list, different favourite parts. Czech leans on -mír peace where Polish leans on -sław glory, and it turns short forms into full legal names more readily than its neighbours do.
- JaromírYAH-ro-meerCzech
Fierce peace: jaro- fierce or vigorous plus -mír. Jaromír Jágr played professional hockey into his fifties.
- LubomírLOO-bo-meerCzech
One who loves peace, from ľub- love. Luboš is the everyday form.
- DrahomírDRAH-ho-meerCzech
Dear peace, from drahý, dear or expensive. Drahomíra was Václav's mother and the villain of his legend.
- VratislavVRAH-tyi-slafCzech
One who returns in glory. Vratislav II was the first Bohemian duke to be made a king, in 1085, and the Polish city of Wrocław is traditionally named after an earlier bearer.
- VladislavVLAH-dyi-slafCzech
Glorious rule — the same compound Hungarian borrowed and reshaped into László.
- BohuslavBO-hoo-slafCzech
The glory of God, from Bohu, to God. Bohuslav Martinů wrote six symphonies in exile.
- DaliborDAH-lee-borCzech
One who fights far off, from dále further plus bor battle. Smetana wrote an opera about him; the tower he was jailed in still stands at Prague Castle.
- ZbyněkZBI-nyekCzech
One who dispels anger — the Czech counterpart of Polish Zbigniew, worn down to two syllables.
- RadekRAH-dekCzech
Glad, willing. Clipped from Radoslav and long since a name in its own right on Czech birth certificates.
- MilanMEE-lahnCzech
Dear, gracious, from the element mil-. Nothing to do with the Italian city; Milan Kundera carried it into world literature.
- MilošMEE-loshCzech
The same mil- root with a different suffix. The director Miloš Forman kept the háček on his American film credits.
Dukes, kings and patron saints
Bohemia's first dynasty, the Přemyslids, ruled from the ninth century to 1306, and the country's founding legends are attached to their names. These are the heavy ones.
- VáclavVAHTS-lafCzech
Greater glory — Latinised as Wenceslaus, which is how the carol got it. Duke Václav, murdered by his brother in 935, is the patron saint of the Czech lands, and the square in Prague is his.
- PřemyslPRZHEH-mislCzech
One who thinks things out. In the founding legend the ploughman Přemysl is fetched from his field to marry Libuše and found the dynasty.
- BořivojBOR-zhi-voyCzech
One who fights the host. Bořivoj I was the first Přemyslid duke to be baptised, some time in the 880s.
- OtakarO-tah-karCzech
Watchful over wealth — a Germanic name the Přemyslids adopted. Přemysl Otakar II ruled briefly from Silesia to the Adriatic and lost it all at Marchfeld in 1278.
- SvatoplukSVAH-to-plookCzech
A holy host: svato- holy plus pluk, a regiment. Svatopluk I ruled Great Moravia at its widest extent.
- VojtěchVOY-tyekhCzech
Solace of the army. Adalbert of Prague, killed in 997, is patron saint of Bohemia and Poland alike, which is rarer than it sounds.
- KarelKAH-relCzech
A free man. Charles IV founded the university in 1348, made Prague an imperial capital, and is on the hundred-crown note.
Everyday Czech names
The church calendar, Czech-shaped. These are the names on a Prague classroom register, and two of them are the best short course in Czech spelling available.
- JakubYAH-koopCzech
He grasps the heel; supplanter. Reliably among the two or three commonest names given to Czech boys. Kuba for short.
- OndřejON-drzhayCzech
Manly, courageous — the Czech Andrew, and a two-syllable lesson in the ř.
- JindřichYIN-drzhikhCzech
Ruler of the home — the Czech Henry, by way of Germanic Heinrich, with the same ř in the middle.
- MarekMAH-rekCzech
Traditionally, of Mars; the evangelist Mark with a Slavic ending.
- FilipFIH-lipCzech
Friend of horses. Stress the first syllable, as Czech does with every word.
- DominikDOH-mi-nikCzech
Belonging to the Lord. Dominik Hašek kept goal well enough to win two Hart Trophies as a goaltender.
- ZdeněkZDEH-nyekCzech
Traditionally linked to Latin Sidonius, of Sidon; a competing account makes it a worn-down Zdislav. Neither derivation is settled, and the name is thoroughly Czech either way.
How Czech naming works
The little hook over a letter is a háček, and the reform that introduced it is usually credited to Jan Hus in the early fifteenth century: instead of writing cz and sz as Polish still does, Czech marks the sound on the letter itself, so č is ch, š is sh, ž is the zh in measure, and ě softens whatever comes before it. One hook has no equivalent anywhere else. The ř in Ondřej, Jindřich and Bořivoj is a trilled r and a zh produced simultaneously; it is the last sound Czech children master, speech therapists specialise in it, and no foreigner gets it right at first. The consolation is that everything else in Czech is regular: one letter, one sound, stress on the first syllable of every word without exception. Even the vowelless tongue-twister strč prst skrz krk is pronounceable once you know the r is carrying the syllable.
Czech law used to take given names seriously. For decades registrars checked proposed names against an official handbook of permitted forms compiled by the linguist Miloslava Knappová, and a name that was not in it, or that did not clearly indicate the child's sex, could be refused; the rules have loosened considerably but the expectation of a real, attested name remains. Every Czech calendar still prints a name against each day — 28 September for Václav, which is also a public holiday — and the svátek is celebrated with flowers and a small gift, separately from the birthday. One last thing an English speaker should know: Czech surnames take a feminine ending, so the wife of a Novák is Nováková, and Czech women who move abroad spend a lot of time explaining it.