Hungarian2 syllablesTurkic title
Meaning: a chieftain's rank that turned into a name — and Hungary's answer to Julius.
Gyula
| Origin | Hungarian, from gyula, the title of the second dignitary of the Magyar tribal confederation; a Turkic word |
|---|---|
| Meaning | A rank rather than a description — roughly "chief judge" or war-leader, the office below the sacral kende |
| Pronunciation | DYOO-law. The gy is a palatal d, the sound in a quickly said British duke, made with the tongue flat against the roof of the mouth |
| Popularity | Outside the current U.S. top 100 and rare in America; in Hungary a great nineteenth- and twentieth-century name, now well out of fashion |
| Variants | Gyula has long served as the Hungarian equivalent of Latin Julius, a relative of Julian — Jules Verne is Verne Gyula on Hungarian covers |
| Nicknames | Gyuszi, Gyuszkó; Gyuri is Hungarian for George and is a different name |
| On the map | Gyula, a spa town in Békés county with a fifteenth-century brick castle |
History & meaning
When Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus described the Magyars in the mid-tenth century, he listed their leadership in Greek: the gylas and the karchas, two dignitaries ranking below the sacred chief who did the actual governing. Gyula is that word. It was an office, one of a set of Turkic administrative terms the Magyars picked up on the steppe, and it belonged to a series of men rather than to any one of them — including the gyula of Transylvania whose daughter Sarolt married Grand Prince Géza, which made the holder of the title grandfather to Hungary's first king.
Titles hardening into names is the ordinary pattern of the period here, and Zoltán did exactly the same. Gyula then acquired a second life. When Hungarian needed an equivalent for Latin Julius, the opening sound and the shape matched well enough that Gyula took the job, so every Julius in a Hungarian translation — Caesar, Verne, the calendar — comes out Gyula. Two unrelated names sharing one Hungarian form is a quiet piece of chance, and Hungarians never think about it.
Why parents choose it
Currently, in Hungary, they largely do not: Gyula reads as a grandfather's name, worn by the generation born before the war. Abroad its problem is severe, because the gy has no English equivalent and readers arrive at GUY-you-la and stay there. What it has is history — an office older than the kingdom, and a run of bearers who shaped the country.
Middle names for Gyula
An unusual opening consonant is easier to carry with a plain second name: Gyula Antal, Gyula Ferenc, Gyula Márton, Gyula Pál. The middle names guide has the general principles.
Famous Gyulas
Gyula Andrássy led the first Hungarian government after the Compromise of 1867 and then served as foreign minister of the whole monarchy; the grandest avenue in Budapest carries his name. Gyula Grosics kept goal for the Golden Team, the Hungary side that beat England 6–3 at Wembley in 1953 and went unbeaten for four years. Gyula Krúdy wrote the Szindbád stories, which turned turn-of-the-century Budapest into a permanent literary mood.
Consider instead
Zoltán is the other Magyar rank that became a name, and it is far easier to say. Géza comes from the same layer of the tenth-century court. Kálmán keeps the vintage and gives an English reader something to hold on to.