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ArchivesRe: Silona meaning/existence
in reply to a message by elbowin
The fact that they are all from the former GDR made me wonder if the name could be connected to Russia somehow. But alas... in Russian, силона (silona) is only the genitive of силон (silon), which is the name of a type of polymer fibre that was developed in the 1940s by the Czech chemist Otto Wichterle (1913-1998) and others:
- https://ru.wiktionary.org/wiki/силон (in Russian)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silon (in English)
I strongly doubt that East German parents would want to name their daughter after something like that! In their case it is probably more likely that Silona is a combination of two existing names, such as Silke with Ilona or even Aliona.
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Never mind, there is a connection to Russia after all!
For the East German bearers, the names that we should be looking at are Силен (Silen) and Силена (Silena):
- Силен (Silen): https://imya.com/name/32497 (in Russian)
- Силена (Silena): https://imya.com/name/9150 (in Russian)
Both are derived from the Russian adjective силен (silen) meaning "strong, powerful", which makes them etymologically related to the Russian noun сила (sila) meaning "strength" as well as "power, might":
- силен (silen): https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/силен (in English)
- сила (sila): https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/сила#Russian (in English)
The aforementioned Russian adjective has a very similar-looking variant, namely силён (silon/silion/silyon). It has the exact same meaning:
- силён (silon/silion/silyon): https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/силён (in English)
As a result, the names Silen and Silena appear to have the variants Силён (Silon/Silion/Silyon) and Силёна (Silona/Siliona/Silyona), but they seem to be either very rare or archaic. Searching for them produces name-like results on the search engines, but nothing that is immediately and obviously concrete (at least at first glance). For the feminine name in particular, it probably also doesn't help that in modern Russian, there is a similar-looking everyday word with a negative meaning:
- силёнка (silonka/silionka/silyonka) meaning "weak, puny strength": https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/силёнка (in English)
For the East German bearers, the names that we should be looking at are Силен (Silen) and Силена (Silena):
- Силен (Silen): https://imya.com/name/32497 (in Russian)
- Силена (Silena): https://imya.com/name/9150 (in Russian)
Both are derived from the Russian adjective силен (silen) meaning "strong, powerful", which makes them etymologically related to the Russian noun сила (sila) meaning "strength" as well as "power, might":
- силен (silen): https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/силен (in English)
- сила (sila): https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/сила#Russian (in English)
The aforementioned Russian adjective has a very similar-looking variant, namely силён (silon/silion/silyon). It has the exact same meaning:
- силён (silon/silion/silyon): https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/силён (in English)
As a result, the names Silen and Silena appear to have the variants Силён (Silon/Silion/Silyon) and Силёна (Silona/Siliona/Silyona), but they seem to be either very rare or archaic. Searching for them produces name-like results on the search engines, but nothing that is immediately and obviously concrete (at least at first glance). For the feminine name in particular, it probably also doesn't help that in modern Russian, there is a similar-looking everyday word with a negative meaning:
- силёнка (silonka/silionka/silyonka) meaning "weak, puny strength": https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/силёнка (in English)
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Exploring the Russian path, there may be a connection to Classical Greek Selene / Modern Greek Sileni, the moon goddess.
This message was edited 1/10/2023, 3:23 AM
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The modern Greek form is actually Selini. There are two Greek letters used for the 'e' in the name, namely the epsilon and the eta. Of the two of them, only the eta becomes an 'i' in modern Greek.
But yes, that has indeed occurred to me, as Selene, Selini and their variants Selena and Selina (both used in Russian) are visually rather similar to Silona. I even considered that Silona might be related to Silenus, which is also the name of a character from Greek mythology. But then I thought: "Hmm, the jump from Greek Sel- to Sil- in Russian might be a bit too much, especially if you consider that Russian tends to stay very faithful to Greek names, in that the names (often in their modern Greek form) will be almost perfectly preserved in Russian, at least vowel-wise. As for Silenus: he is not a famous/important enough character for parents to want to name their daughter after."
Just to make sure, I have also checked whether in Greek there has ever been the name Silon (can be spelled as Σίλων and Σίλον) or Sylon (can be spelled as Σύλων and Σύλον), as both would become Силон (Silon) in Russian. But alas, no such name has ever existed! The closest possible name is Κύλων (Kylon), which becomes Cylon in Latin and Килон (Kilon) in Russian. There is also the lesser known Κίλων (Kilon), which would also become Килон (Kilon) in Russian, but Cilon in Latin.
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So this looks like a dead end. I searched for forms like Siliona and Siljona with an additional -i- or -j- in Germany but they don't exist. So the best trace right now leads to the Swedish ship: Its stranding in the big flood of 1962 had a lot of news coverage in German media.
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