Faina
From Greek phaeine, "shining", and it reaches Poland mainly through Russian, where it settled as a Christian name. Fewer than 200 women in the country carry it, so most Poles have never met a Faina.
Faina Pronunciation
Faina is pronounced fah-EE-nah (/faˈina/).
What Faina means
Where Faina comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Faina comes from Greek, from phaeine, meaning shining or radiant. The word belongs to the vocabulary of light, the same root that gives Greek its terms for brightness and appearance. For a Polish reader the name arrives mostly through Russian, where it settled as a Christian name and stayed.
An early martyr named Faina gave the name its footing in the church calendar. Centuries later it found a very different bearer. Faina Ranevskaya, born in 1896, became one of the most quoted actresses of the Soviet stage and screen, sharp-tongued and hard to forget. Alexander Blok also wrote a cycle of poems titled Faina, so the name has a literary shadow as well.
The meaning, shining, sits close to the sound. Faina is short. Say it in a school register and it stands apart from the rows of Zofias and Julias.
Its Polish gloss is lśniąca, błyszcząca. That is the whole of it: a Greek word for light, worn as a name.
When Faina celebrates name day
Faina appears 1 time in the Polish name day calendar, never as a main name. The first of these dates is 18 May.
Rarer dates. Only the most complete calendars add this name on these days. Most skip them, so hardly anyone celebrates then.
How many people are named Faina
1 in 120555 women in Poland is named Faina. 187 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #2314 among female names.
Faina as a middle name
Faina is a first name for 187 women in Poland and a middle name for another 3, a 98/2 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 4779th, between Fadia (3) and Fairuz (3).
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#4777 Ezzeldin3
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#4778 Fadia3
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#4779 Faina3
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#4780 Fairuz3
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#4781 Fanni3