Switlana
A Ukrainian name that stays scarce in Poland: only about 125 women carry it, and it went to no newborns in any recent year. The Slavic root means "light".
Switlana Pronunciation
Switlana is pronounced sfeet-LAH-nah (/sfitˈlana/).
What Switlana means
Where Switlana comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Switlana grows from the old Slavic root svet, meaning light. It is the Ukrainian form of that root, and it says plainly what światło says in Polish: brightness. The Polish spelling shifts it to Świetłana, a variant that keeps the same glow.
The name is younger than it sounds. In 1813 the Russian poet Vasily Zhukovsky gave it to the heroine of his ballad Svetlana, and from that printed page the name spread across Slavic lands. Ukrainian speakers shaped it into Switlana. So the sense of light sat in the root already, while the name itself began as a poet's invention.
You can meet it today on a class register in a Polish school, one Świetłana among the Zuzannas and Julias. The Ukrainian form Switlana travels with families who moved west, and teachers learn to read both spellings. Whichever way it is written, the meaning holds: światło, light.
How many people are named Switlana
1 in 180351 women in Poland is named Switlana. 125 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #3007 among female names.