Wałentyna

Walentyna comes from Latin. The root is the verb `valere`, to be strong and to be healthy, which gave Rome the name Valentinus and its feminine Valentina. Polish took that feminine line and spelled the woman's form its own way. The short meaning stays close to the root: `silna, zdrowa`, strong and healthy.

The name keeps a small family around it. Wala is the everyday diminutive. Walentyn is the man who shares the same stem, and the lowercase variant walentyna turns up more in speech than on an official form. On a class register the full form sits a few letters longer than most, and a teacher reads it once before settling on Wala.

Saint Valentine, a third-century Roman, carried the masculine form and gave Poland its imieniny on 14 February. The feminine arrived along the same Latin road, only later. The sense never drifted. Walentyna still means strong, still means healthy.