🔼The name Diana: Summary
- Meaning
- Deity, Bright
- Etymology
- From the root of the name Zeus, which probably means bright.
🔼The name Diana in the Bible
The name Diana doesn't really occur in the Greek New Testament. But Acts 19:24-35 speaks of Αρτεμις (Artemis) and the Latin Vulgate helpfully interpreted that Greek name with the Roman equivalent Diana. And since the King James Version took its cues from the Latin Vulgate, Diana became a Biblical name.
Diana was the Roman goddess of the hunt but also of the moon (having supplanted Luna) and of childbirth and was particularly associated with oak groves. Although Artemis embodies pretty much the same theological expression as Diana, it appears that Diana and Artemis came to pass independently from each other.
🔼Etymology and meaning of the name Diana
The name Diana comes from the same Proto-Indo-European root as the familiar Latin word deus and possibly our English word "day", and has primarily to do with light and brightness (compare the Germanic deity Eostre). Hence, in a secondary sense the name Diana might be construed to mean Deity but primarily it means Bright:
Ζευς Διος
The name Ζευς (Zeus) and its genitive form Dios (Διος) correspond to an ancient root that expressed brightness of sky and clarity of vision. That same root gave us the words dio and deus, meaning god, divine, meaning godly, and diva, meaning deified (feminine). Some say this root even yielded the noun "day" and the verb "to do."