The Fabian Society is a British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy and democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies, rather than by revolutionary overthrow.

The Fabian strategy is a military strategy where pitched battles and frontal assaults are avoided in favor of wearing down an opponent through a war of attrition and indirection.

English German Dutch Spanish Italian (Veneto) and Polish; Czech (mainly Fabián); Slovak (also Fábian Fabián); Hungarian (Fábián): from a personal name Latin Fabianus a derivative of the Roman surname Fabius.

Fabian is the English form of the late Roman name Fabianus. This was a name originally given to those adopted into or descended through the female line from a Roman family named Fabius, that derived from the Latin faba for the broad bean, an important food crop in antiquity.