Ula

Ula is a Slavic short form, and its longer shape is Urszula. The meaning people attach to it is "little she-bear", mała niedźwiedziczka in Polish. That bear did not begin in Slavic ground. It arrives through Urszula, whose older Latin root is ursa, a female bear. So the animal reached Ula by way of the longer name.

Ula answers fast. Three letters on a school register, quick to write and quick to call. The short form has long lived on its own in Poland, well past serving as a nickname for Urszula.

Beside it sit the variant urshulya and the full Urszula. The Church marks Saint Ursula on 21 October, and that date holds Urszula's imieniny across Poland. So Ula keeps a fixed day in the calendar. Whoever calls Ula calls a little she-bear.