Svetlana


Svetlana is a common Orthodox Slavic female name, deriving from the East and South Slavic root svet, 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. The name was coined by Alexander Vostokov and popularized by Vasily Zhukovsky in his eponymous ballad "", first published in 1813. The name is also used in Ukraine, Belarus, Slovakia, and Serbia, with a number of occurrences in non-Slavic countries.
In the Russian Orthodox Church Svetlana is used as a Russian translation of Photina, a name sometimes ascribed to the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well.
Semantically, similar names to this are Lucia, Claire, Roxana, and Shweta.

Variants

The Ukrainian equivalent is Svitlana, the Belarusian, Sviatlana, the Polish variant is Świetlana, the Czech Světlana, and the Bosnian, Croatian and Montenegrin variant is Svjetlana.

Diminutives

Russian language diminutives include Sveta and Lana.
Sveta also means "saint" in Bulgarian. The Slavic element Svet means "blessed, holy, bright".
Serbian language diminutives of the name are Sveta, and Ceca.

People