Diana
Diana descends from an Old Latin form, Dīvāna or Diwjana, built on dius/divus, "divine, shining" - putting her, at a distance, in the same ancient *dyeu- word family as Jupiter and Zeus.
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Meaning
Diana's name is one of the more secure Roman etymologies, and it connects her, by a longer and less direct route than Jupiter's own compound name, to the same deep root as the king of the gods. The standard reconstruction derives Diana from an Old Latin form Dīvāna, formed from dīvus, "divine" or "godlike," plus a suffix -āna; an alternative but compatible line of reconstruction proposes an earlier form *Diwjana, built directly from *diw-yo-, an adjectival derivative of the same ancient root, *dyeu-, "to shine," that lies behind dius, "godly" or "belonging to the sky," and behind deus and dīvus themselves, Latin's ordinary words for "god" and "divine." Because *dyeu- is also the exact root that produces Iuppiter's own Iu- element and the Greek name Zeus, Diana's name and Jupiter's name are, at considerable linguistic distance and by way of different formations, drawing on the same prehistoric well - though Diana's name reached its final form through the general adjective for "divine" rather than through Jupiter's specific compound with "father." Ancient Roman writers already noticed a connection between Diana's name and light, though they explained it through a different, more folk-etymological route: both Varro and Cicero associate Diana with dies, "day," reading her name as describing how she "makes a kind of day out of the night" - a reference to moonlight and to her identification with the moon goddess in one of her several overlapping roles. This ancient dies-based reading is not identical to the modern dyeu-/dius-based reconstruction, though both point toward the same general semantic territory of light, brightness, and the sky, and the overlap is close enough that it is difficult to be certain how much the ancient etymology and the modern one are really describing the same thing versus arriving at compatible answers by different, partly coincidental paths. Diana is also linked, through a Greek cognate rather than a Latin one, to Diōnē, an old and partly obscure Greek goddess's name that shares the same ultimate root by an independent line of descent within Greek itself.
What does the name Diana actually mean?
Diana descends from an Old Latin form built on dius or divus, "divine" or "shining," ultimately from the same ancient root, *dyeu-, that gives Latin deus, "god." The name broadly means something like "the divine one" or "the shining one," fitting her associations with light and the moon.
What did ancient Romans think the name Diana meant?
Cicero and Varro both connect Diana to dies, "day," explaining that she "makes a kind of day" out of the night through moonlight - a folk etymology tied to her lunar identity. This ancient dies-based reading is not identical to the modern dius/*dyeu- reconstruction, though both point toward the same general idea of light and brightness.
Cicero, De Natura Deorum 2.68
Is Diana's name connected to the Greek goddess Dione?
There is a genuine cognate relationship, though a distant one: Dione's name descends from the same ultimate Indo-European root as Diana's, by an independent line of development within Greek rather than through any direct borrowing between the two languages, making the two names linguistic relatives rather than the same word in two traditions.
Why does Diana's name mean something close to "divine" rather than describing the hunt or the moon directly?
Because the name was formed from a general Latin adjective for divinity, dius or divus, rather than from a word specific to hunting or the moon; those associations belong to the goddess's mythology and cult, inherited largely from the Greek Artemis, rather than to the literal meaning built into her Roman name itself.
Carried By
Sources
- Cicero, De Natura Deorum 2.68
- Livy, Ab Urbe Condita 1.45
- Michiel de Vaan, Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (2008)