Fotini
One of the rarest names on the register: only sixteen women in Poland carry it, and no girls have been given it this century. Greek at root, from a word for "light".
Fotini Pronunciation
Fotini is pronounced fo-TEE-nyee (/fɔˈtiɲi/).
What Fotini means
Where Fotini comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Fotini comes from Greek, from phōs, the word for light. The adjective phōteinós meant bright or shining, and the name grew straight out of it. Its meaning is light.
In Orthodox tradition the name belongs to Saint Photini, the Samaritan woman who spoke with Christ at the well near Sychar. The Gospel of John leaves her unnamed. Later Christian tradition called her Photini, the luminous one, and counted her among the saints, with a feast kept in spring. So a woman known only by an encounter received a name built from the word for light.
The name stays rare in Poland, where Greek forms like this one arrive through family ties or conversion rather than local habit. Picture a class register at a Warsaw school, Fotini printed once among the Zuzannas and Amelias. A teacher might pause over it. The Greek root does the explaining, since phōs gives light in Polish too, światło.
How many people are named Fotini
1 in 1408990 women in Poland is named Fotini. 16 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #11497 among female names.
Fotini as a middle name
Fotini is a first name for 16 women in Poland and a middle name for another 9, a 64/36 split. In the women's middle-name ranking it sits 2560th, between Filippa (9) and Georginia (9).
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#2558 Felisa9
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#2559 Filippa9
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#2560 Fotini9
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#2561 Georginia9
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#2562 Gimena9