Andrei is a Slavic form of Andrew, from Greek meaning manly or brave.
Andrei is the Romanian and Eastern Slavic form of Andrew, which descends from the Greek 'Andreas,' itself built on 'anēr' — man, in the sense of a virile, courageous human being. The name entered Europe through Christianity: Saint Andrew, the fisherman-apostle and brother of Peter, became the patron saint of Scotland, Russia, Greece, and Romania, spreading his name across the continent through missionary networks and dynastic devotion. In Eastern Europe, 'Andrei' rather than 'Andreas' or 'Andrew' became the local flowering of this pan-Christian name.
In Romanian culture, Andrei carries particular weight as the name of the country's patron saint, Sfântul Andrei, who according to tradition brought Christianity to the Dacian lands. November 30th is celebrated as his feast day with deep cultural resonance. In Russian and Ukrainian literary culture, the name is woven through canonical works — Prince Andrei Bolkonsky in Tolstoy's 'War and Peace' stands as one of the great characters of world literature, a man of honor and disillusionment whose arc mirrors Russia's own Napoleonic trauma.
Contemporary parents outside Eastern Europe often choose Andrei as a cosmopolitan alternative to the more familiar Andrew — it carries international flair without obscurity, and its soft ending gives it a warmth that the harder Anglo-Saxon form sometimes lacks. In the twenty-first century, as Romanian and Eastern European diaspora communities have grown across Western Europe and North America, Andrei travels naturally between languages, sounding at home whether spoken in Bucharest, Paris, or São Paulo.