From the word bastion, ultimately from Latin via French, meaning a fortified stronghold or defensive structure.
Bastion is a streamlined variant of Bastian, itself a short form of Sebastian — a name with deep roots in ancient Greek. The original form, Sebastianos, derived from the city of Sebaste in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey), a name meaning "venerable" or "revered." The city's name in turn came from the Greek sebastos, a translation of the Latin augustus, the honorific title of the Roman emperor.
Thus embedded in Bastion is a lineage of imperial dignity. The name's most enduring historical anchor is Saint Sebastian, a third-century Christian martyr said to have been a Roman soldier who secretly aided persecuted Christians. His death by arrows became one of the most iconic subjects in Renaissance art, immortalized by Botticelli, Mantegna, and El Greco.
M. Barrie's work and Johann Sebastian Bach's enduring musical legacy. Bastion specifically carries an additional semantic layer from the English noun — a fortified stronghold, a place of defense.
This double meaning, both a venerable historical lineage and the image of strength and protection, gives the name a particularly compelling weight. The spelling Bastion has grown in appeal in the early twenty-first century, favored by parents drawn to names that feel heroic and grounded simultaneously, and boosted in popular culture by the armored hero character Bastion in the video game Overwatch.