Yaroslava

Yaroslava grows from two old Slavic roots. The first, jar, carries a sense of fierce, high-summer strength. The second, slava, means glory. Together they give the meaning that still follows the name: fierce glory.

The name belongs most of all to the Ukrainian and Russian worlds, where the masculine Jarosław has a long royal record. Yaroslav the Wise ruled Kievan Rus in the eleventh century, and his daughter Anna Yaroslavna left Kyiv to become a queen of France. The feminine Jarosława stands as the close variant, so a girl named Yaroslava shares her roots with princes and a medieval queen.

In Poland the short form Jarka does the daily work. The glory here is loud. Picture the class register at an imieniny, the full Jarosława in one column and the small Jarka in another. From the start, jar and slava spelled fierce glory.