Svetlana

Common card · No. 260943

Svetlana (Cyrillic: Светлана) is a feminine given name of Russian origin, deriving from the Slavic word svet (Cyrillic: свет), meaning "light". Derived forms include Sveta, Svetlanka, Svetulya, Svetunya, Svetusya, Svetukha, Svetusha, Veta, Svetka, and Lana. Particularly unique among similar common Russian names, this one is not of ancient Slavic origin but was coined by Alexander Vostokov in 1802 and popularized by Vasily Zhukovsky in his eponymous ballad "Svetlana", the latter first published in 1813. It was adopted as the vernacular equivalent to the Greek name Photini, which was borne by a saint who has been identified with the Samaritan woman mentioned at Jacob's well in the Bible (John 4). The name is also popular in Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Serbia, Slovakia, and Ukraine, with a number of occurrences in non-Slavic-speaking countries. Semantically similar names to this are Lucia (of Latin origin, meaning "light"), Claire ("light" or "clear" in French, equivalent...

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