Béla (Hungarian: [ˈbeːlɒ]; Slavic variants are Bela or Belo) is a common Hungarian male given name. Its most likely etymology is from old Hungarian bél ("heart; insides" in Old Hungarian and "intestines" in modern Hungarian; in both the symbolism is "guts" i.e. bravery and character). Another possible source is a Turkic word boila/boyla – "noble, distinguished" (which was a title of high nobility among the Bulgars and Göktürks), or a variant of Ábel.

Due to the fame and importance of Saint Adalbert of Prague (~956–997) for early mediaeval Hungarian, Czech and Polish cultural history, the name Béla has been artificially assigned to the Germanic name Adalbert ("noble bright") and the Slavonic name Vojtěch/Wojciech ("consolator of troops"), although there is no linguistic relationship among these names.

People

edit

See also

edit