Lyudmyla
A Slavic name meaning "favour of the people," carried in Poland mostly by Ukrainian women and close kin to the Polish Ludmiła. Only about 1,500 bear it, and almost no girls are given it now, so meeting one stays memorable.
Lyudmyla Pronunciation
Lyudmyla is pronounced lih-ood-MIH-lah (/lɨudˈmɨla/).
What Lyudmyla means
Where Lyudmyla comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Lyudmyla comes from two old Slavic roots, lyud, meaning people, and mil, meaning dear or favourable. Together they give the sense the name still holds in Ukraine: favour of the people, or in Polish miła ludziom. The Polish variant is Ludmiła, and the two forms have grown up as close cousins across the border.
The oldest famous bearer is Saint Ludmila of Bohemia, born around 860, grandmother of Duke Wenceslas and one of the earliest Christian saints of the Czech lands. Her cult carried the name westward while it stayed at home among the eastern Slavs.
In Ukraine the name became common. A teacher reading a class register in Kyiv would once have found several Lyudmylas in one row. It shortens easily to Lyuda or Mila, and the second of those travels well into other languages.
Favour of the people is a hopeful reading, and it settled onto the name long after the roots were first spoken. What the parts say more plainly is simpler: dear to the people, or Ludmiła in its Polish spelling.
How many people are named Lyudmyla
1 in 15090 women in Poland is named Lyudmyla. 1,494 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #797 among female names.