Vasilij

Spellings & scripts●

Locally spelled Василий in RU Russia, KZ Kazakhstan, TR Türkiye and 6 more, Basil in US United States, GB United Kingdom, AU Australia and 5 more, Vasil in GE Georgia, CZ Czechia, ES Spain and Vasile in RO Romania, DE Germany.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin

No verified etymology recorded for this name yet — the entries below are drawn from usage statistics and the name graph.

Attested across 16 languages in the etymology graph.

Languages●

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Vasilij is also recorded as another name, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

• a separate given name579 records spelled Vasilij2 spellings in the group

  Most recorded in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, United States

  Also written Vasilīj

45 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Over time●

SE SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) — 22 years between 1999–2020. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

• Vasily II of Moscowb. 1415RUnot in their usual nameGrand Prince of Moscow (1415-1462)
• Vasili IV of Russiab. 1552RUnot in their usual nameTsar of Russia (1606–1610)
• Vasily Andreyevich Zhukovskyb. 1783RUnot in their usual nameRussian poet (1783-1852)
• Vasily Vereshchaginb. 1842RUnot in their usual nameRussian painter (1842-1904)
• Vasilij Kandinskib. 1866FRavant-garde painter of Russian origin (1866-1944)
• Vasily Ivanovich Chuikovb. 1900RUnot in their usual nameSoviet marshal (1900–1982)
• Wassily Leontiefb. 1906USnot in their usual nameRussian economist (1906-1999)
• Vasily Zaytsevb. 1915RUnot in their usual nameSoviet sniper (1915-1991)
• Vasily Smyslovb. 1921RUnot in their usual nameSoviet chess grandmaster (1921–2010)
• Vasili Arkhipovb. 1926RUnot in their usual nameSoviet submarine officer who averted nuclear war (1926–1998)

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence●

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 66 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Vasilij?

We estimate roughly 184 thousand people bear Vasilij (counting its spellings and scripts) across 12 countries in our records.

In which country does Vasilij have the most bearers?

Vasilij is most frequently recorded in Russia, where it is most often spelled василий.

How common is Vasilij compared with other names?

In Russia, Vasilij is the 41st most common given name of 418,751 given names recorded there.

Is Vasilij a male or female name?

Vasilij is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.