Boy · Greek
Vasily
Say it: vah-SEE-lee
Meaning
Russian form of Basil, from Greek basileios 'royal'.
Certainscholars agree on this meaning.
A Muscovite royal name and a very common Russian name before 1917.
Its wave through time
Rare in the records
In the United States
- 103 babies given this name since 1978
- At its height in 2018, about 1 in 129,300 boys
- 5 babies in 2020
Through the ages
- The High and Late Middle Ages1100 to 1450
- The Renaissance1400 to 1600
- The Age of Revolutions1750 to 1837
- Victorian and Belle Époque1837 to 1914
- The Modern Age1880 to today
Used by
The family of the name
Other spellings: Vasiliy, Василий, Vasya
| Ukrainian | Vasyl |
|---|---|
| Bulgarian | Vasil |
| Polish | Bazyli |
Famous bearers
- Vasily III, Grand Prince of Moscow
- Vasily Kandinsky, painter
Names worth a look
Where this comes from
- Lives of the saints and early Christian martyrologies
- Royal and noble genealogies
- National birth statistics of European countries source
- United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source
Meanings and histories are compiled from the study of names and their languages and checked by a second review.
Meanings and histories are drawn from the study of names and their languages, each with a confidence rating; popularity figures come from official birth records. Name histories are a living field: if you know of a correction, we would be glad to hear it.