Svetlana

Svetlana (Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian Cyrillic: Светлана; Belarusian: Святлана, romanized: Sviatlana; Ukrainian: Світлана, romanized: Svitlana) is a common Orthodox Slavic female name, deriving from the East and South Slavic root svet (Cyrillic: свет), which translates into English as "light", "shining", "luminescent", "pure", "blessed", or "holy", depending upon context similar if not the same as the word Shweta in Sanskrit.[1] The name was coined by Alexander Vostokov and popularized by Vasily Zhukovsky in his eponymous ballad "Svetlana", first published in 1813. The name is also used in Ukraine, Belarus, Slovakia, and Serbia, with a number of occurrences in non-Slavic countries.[2]

Popularity of name Svetlana.
For other uses, see Svetlana (disambiguation).
Svetlana
Svetlana is often used in reference to the Samaritan woman at the well in the Biblical Gospel of John. It is the Russian version of the Greek saint name Photini, meaning "enlightened"
Genderfemale (feminine)
Origin
Word/nameSlavic, Romanian, Lithuanian, Circassian
Meaning"light", "pure"
Region of origincountries that speak Slavic languages
Other names
Nickname(s)Svetka, Sveta, Svetla, Svietla, Svietlanka, Svetulya, Svetochka, Lana, Svetti
Related namesSvitlana, Sviatlana, Svjetlana, Świetlana

In the Russian Orthodox Church Svetlana is used as a Russian translation of Photina (derived from phos (Greek: φως, "light")), a name sometimes ascribed to the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well (the Bible, John 4).

Semantically, similar names to this are Lucia (of Latin origin, meaning "light"), Claire ("light" or "clear" in French, equivalent to Spanish Clara), Roxana (from Old Persian, "little shiny star, light"), and Shweta (Sanskrit, "white, pure").

Variants

The Ukrainian equivalent is Svitlana (Ukrainian: Світлана), the Belarusian, Sviatlana (Belarusian: Святлана), the Polish variant is Świetlana, the Czech Světlana, and the Bosnian, Croatian and Montenegrin variant is Svjetlana (Cyrillic: Свјетлана).

Diminutives

Russian language diminutives include Sveta (Russian: Света, used in Russian-speaking countries) and Lana (the latter is mainly used outside the former USSR).

Sveta also means "saint" in Bulgarian. The Slavic element Svet means "blessed, holy, bright".

Serbian language diminutives of the name are Sveta (Света), and Ceca (Цеца, pronounced Tsetsa).

People

See also

References
  1. Monier-Williams, Monier (1899). A Sanskrit-English dictionary : etymologically and philologically arranged with special reference to cognate Indo-European languages. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  2. "Baby Names, Name Meaning, Popularity". BabyCenter.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.