Hungarian2 syllablesChieftain
Meaning: the chieftain of the horn, hanged after Lechfeld in 955.
Lehel
| Origin | Hungarian, the name of a tenth-century Magyar chieftain, also recorded as Lél |
|---|---|
| Meaning | Uncertain. The identical Hungarian verb lehel, to breathe out, is a coincidence the legend makes irresistible, but no derivation is established |
| Pronunciation | LEH-hel. Both es are short and open, both hs are sounded, and the stress sits on the first syllable |
| Popularity | Outside the current U.S. top 100 and unknown in America; in Hungary an uncommon name with a strong attachment to the Jászság region |
| Variants | Lél is the older chronicle form; Latin sources write Lelu and Lehel |
| Nicknames | Lehelke, Lehi |
| The horn | An ivory oliphant of Byzantine work, 10th or 11th century, kept in the Jász Museum at Jászberény and called Lehel's horn since the Middle Ages |
History & meaning
On 10 August 955, on the Lechfeld outside Augsburg, Otto I destroyed a large Magyar raiding army and ended the era of Hungarian raids into the west. Two of the captured commanders, Lehel and Bulcsú, were hanged at Regensburg. That much is history. What Hungarians remember is what the chronicles added: brought before the emperor, Lehel asked to sound his horn one last time, was handed it, and struck the man dead, telling him he would go on ahead and serve him in the next world. The fourteenth-century Illuminated Chronicle tells it with relish and names the emperor Conrad — who had been dead since 918, and was never at the Lechfeld. The story is a set piece, not a report, and it sits on the shelf beside Botond splitting the gate of Constantinople.
There is a horn: a carved ivory oliphant of Byzantine workmanship from the tenth or eleventh century, kept at Jászberény and called Lehel's for as long as anyone can trace — a real and beautiful object attached to an impossible story. The name itself resists explanation. It is tempting past reason that lehel is also the ordinary Hungarian verb for breathing out, given what the man is famous for doing with his lungs, but that is folk etymology working backwards from the legend, and the older form Lél gives it no support.
Why parents choose it
Two soft syllables and a schoolbook hero: Lehel is far gentler on the ear than the other conquest-era names, which mostly rely on hard consonants. It is also local in a way few Hungarian names are, tied to Jászberény and the Jász country where the horn is kept.
Middle names for Lehel
Repeated soft ls take a hard second name well: Lehel Botond, Lehel Zsombor, Lehel Márk, Lehel Csaba. The middle names guide explains why contrast usually beats matching.
Famous Lehels
This is a name carried by its objects rather than by its bearers, and the modern ones are mostly young. The horn sits in the Jász Museum. Budapest has a Lehel tér with one of the city's busiest market halls on it; the refrigerator factory at Jászberény sold appliances under the name Lehel to most of the Eastern bloc; and every Hungarian child reads the horn story. Few names of this size come with that much furniture.
Consider instead
Botond comes with the other great chronicle set piece and a much harder sound. Szabolcs is a chieftain with an earthwork fort and a county to his name. Bendegúz reaches further back into legend and is rarer still.