Comments for the name Raluca

It means ray of light.

The name Raluca is of Greek origin. It comes from Heracles (Hercules), which comes from Hera kleios = glory of godess Hera.

Raluca means "field with birds" and it comes from Old English. The person who wears it is joyful and changes her mind very often. She is like an explosion of light and colours.

I also heard that it is from Herakleios. And I found this on a comment on someone's blog who claims they read this in a book they forgot the name of in a now-nonexistant library. It is possible but still.

Pronounced "rah-luw-tsa".

No, it's not pronounced rah-luw-tsa. It's pronounced rah-LOU-kah.

I love that name, it's so interesting.

"Raluca" is composed of 2 words: "Ra" and "Luca". Ra refers to the Egyptian sun god, while "Luca" is the translation of Luke (St Luke). The name Raluca could be of Coptic origin.

It's a Romanian name with Greek origins which means "Glory to Ralle" (Ralle + kleos). Ralle being a hypocorism for Hera the meaning would be "Glory to Hera".

Short form Ralu. Name of medieval princess of Walachia (or the Romanian Country).
Assumed feminine form of Raul.

Raluca - Sunlight, The light of the sun
Ra - The Egyptian Sun God
Luca - derived from the Latin word lux (, -cis)= light, is the feminine form for Lucius.
At the same time,"Luca" can be derived from the Greek word "Loukas". The meaning of Loukas is "from Lucania". Lucania was the ancient name of an area of Italy (today known as Basilicata). This name is the source form of Luke, Lucas, Luca.

The name first appeared in the 18th century, it was worn by a famous Romanian princess called domnita Ralu. Hence, the form 'Raluca' is actually the diminutive of the name and not the other way around as it is perceived today. The name 'Ralu' comes from Late Latin, 'raz' (ray) and 'lus' (light) meaning 'ray of light'.

The name "Raluca" is directly etymologizable in Slavic languages, Russian in particular. It consists of two words "Ra"+"luca", pronounced as "rah-luch", Ra is the Sun, and the name of god, and luca - is "luch" (Rus.), ray. Thus the meaning of Raluca is "ray of the Sun", and metaphorically "ray of light". Compare with other Slavic words - Raduga, rainbow, the bow of Ra, Radost', happiness, the abundance of Ra. As such, Raluca is probably of Indo-European origin, as it is not common in the Slavic languages, it was probably borrowed by the Greeks and Romans a while ago.