Stefaniia

Stefaniia grows from the Greek stephanos, a crown or a garland, the wreath handed to a victor. The Ukrainian spelling, with its doubled i, marks it as a name carried in Kyiv and Lviv as readily as in Kraków, where it settles into Stefania. Its sense stays close to that first wreath: korona, wieniec.

Those who hold it often shorten it. Stefa answers at home, Stefka on the school register, and the fuller Stefania waits on the official form at the urząd. The masculine Stefan shares the same root and the same victor's crown.

One bearer was Stefania Turkewich, a Ukrainian composer often called the first woman to write symphonies and operas in her country's music. Her name still means the garland, the crown set on a winner's head.