From Greek Anatolios, meaning sunrise or from the east; common in Slavic use.
Anatoly descends from the Greek Anatolios, itself derived from anatole, meaning "sunrise" or "the East" — the same root that gave the world the name Anatolia for the great peninsula of western Asia. In the Greek geographical imagination, Anatolia was simply where the sun rose, the edge of the known world bathed in morning light. Early Christian saints bore the name, and it traveled into Slavic cultures through the Orthodox Church, where it thrived particularly in Russia and Ukraine, becoming a beloved staple of the Russian naming tradition through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The name gained global recognition largely through the world of chess. Anatoly Karpov, the Soviet and Russian grandmaster who held the World Chess Championship from 1975 to 1985, became one of the sport's most celebrated figures, lending the name an association with intellectual precision and strategic brilliance. Earlier, the Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy gave the name to a rakish, seductive character in War and Peace — Prince Anatole Kuragin — adding a literary dimension of dangerous charm.
In the post-Soviet era, Anatoly stepped slightly outside mainstream Russian naming fashion, which has made it feel distinctive and distinguished rather than dated when encountered in Western contexts. It carries sunrise in its bones.