Quick answer
Boris is a boy name meaning "short; wolf; snow leopard".
Pronunciation: Bulgarian /bo.ˈris/; Russian /bɐ.ˈrʲis/; English /ˈbɔɹ.ɪs/; Croatian /ˈbôː.ris/; Macedonian /ˈbɔ.ris/; Czech /ˈbo.rɪs/; German /ˈboː.ʁɪs/; French /bɔ.ʁis/.
Meaning and history
From a Bulgar Turkic name, also recorded as Bogoris, perhaps meaning "short" or "wolf" or "snow leopard". It was borne by the 9th-century Boris I of Bulgaria, who converted his realm to Christianity and is thus regarded as a saint in the Orthodox Church. To the north in Kievan Rus it was the name of another saint, a son of Vladimir the Great who was murdered with his brother Gleb in the 11th century. His mother may have been Bulgarian. Other notable bearers of the name include the Russian emperor Boris Godunov (1552-1605), later the subject of a play of that name by Aleksandr Pushkin, as well as the Russian author Boris Pasternak (1890-1960), the Bulgarian king Boris III (1894-1943), and the Russian president Boris Yeltsin (1931-2007).
Notes and context
Usage: bulgarian, russian, slovene, croatian, serbian, macedonian, czech, slovak, georgian, german, french | Bulgarian: Борис; Georgian: ბორის