Jowita

Jowita comes from the Latin Iovita, a name built on the root of Jove, the older name for Jupiter, chief god of the Roman pantheon. The short meaning renders it as "dedicated to Jupiter," "należąca do Jowisza." Long before it belonged to any child in a Polish classroom, it belonged to a god the Romans measured their calendar and their oaths against.

The name reached Poland through the Church rather than through Rome directly. Saint Jowita was a deacon of Brescia, martyred in the second century alongside his brother Faustyn. The two were beheaded for their faith, and in 1438 the city named them its patrons. Their shared feast falls on 15 February, which is why Jowita's imieniny sit on that day. A pagan god's name had become a Christian martyr's.

So the sense of belonging to Jupiter is the literal origin, while the reverence attached to it came later, from Brescia and not from the temple.

On a February register the name is easy to read and hard to mistake for another. Jowita has no standard diminutive or variant on the books. It stands as it is, a Latin word for a Roman god carried by a girl.