A Ukrainian form of Andrew, from Greek Andreas, meaning "manly" or "brave."
Andriy is the Ukrainian form of Andrew, tracing back through Byzantine Greek *Andreas* to the ancient Greek root *anēr* (genitive *andros*), meaning "man" in the sense of a brave, vigorous human being. The Greek Andrew was one of Jesus's first apostles — a fisherman from Bethsaida who became the patron saint of Scotland, Russia, Georgia, and several other nations — and his name spread across Christendom with the diffusion of Christianity through both the Roman and Byzantine churches. The distinctly Ukrainian spelling Andriy reflects the phonological and orthographic conventions of the Ukrainian language, which developed its own literary tradition fully distinct from Russian.
The name carries particular cultural weight in Ukraine, where Saint Andrew is deeply venerated. According to legend, the apostle visited the hills above the Dnipro River and prophesied that a great Christian city would rise there — a founding myth for Kyiv itself. The Andriyivska Church in Kyiv's old city, a Baroque masterpiece by Bartolomeo Rastrelli, bears his name.
Ukrainian bearers across history include Andriy Sheptytsky, the Greek Catholic metropolitan who sheltered Jews during the Holocaust, and Andriy Shevchenko, the footballer considered one of the greatest strikers of his generation. In the early 21st century, Andriy gained significant international visibility as Ukrainians and their diaspora emphasized their distinct linguistic identity. Parents outside Ukraine increasingly choose the spelling as a conscious acknowledgment of that identity and its history.