Hungarian form of Alexander, from Greek 'alexandros' meaning 'defender of the people.'
Sandor is the Hungarian form of Alexander, itself derived from the ancient Greek Alexandros, a compound of alexein (to defend) and anēr (man), yielding the celebrated meaning 'defender of men.' The name entered Hungary through Byzantine and Slavic channels during the medieval period, and Hungarians made it their own with the characteristic vowel harmony and orthography of the Magyar language. It is pronounced roughly SHAHN-dor, with the initial consonant giving it a warmth and distinctiveness absent from its Western European cousins.
No bearer raised the name higher than Sándor Petőfi, the nineteenth-century Hungarian revolutionary poet whose lyric verse and nationalist fervor made him a symbol of Hungarian identity. He died in 1849 at roughly twenty-six years of age, reportedly at the Battle of Segesvár during the revolution against Habsburg rule, and his disappearance only cemented his mythic status. His poem 'Nemzeti dal' (National Song) became the anthem of the uprising.
To name a son Sandor in Hungary was, for generations, to invoke that incandescent legacy of artistic courage. R. Martin's character Sandor Clegane in A Song of Ice and Fire and its television adaptation Game of Thrones — a figure of fierce loyalty beneath a scarred exterior, which gave the name a gruff, romantic edge for international audiences. Today Sandor is used across Central and Eastern Europe and is beginning to appear in English-speaking countries among parents seeking something both ancient and genuinely uncommon.