Dominika is a feminine form of Dominic, from Latin Dominicus, meaning of the Lord.
Dominika is the Slavic and Central European feminine form of Dominic, itself derived from the Latin *Dominicus* — of the Lord, belonging to God. The root *Dominus*, meaning master or lord, gave the Roman calendar its *dies Dominica*, the Lord's Day, which survives in the English Sunday and the Romance words for Sunday: *domenica*, *dimanche*, *domingo*. A child born on Sunday was often given a name from this root, making Dominica and Dominika among history's most organically theologically-named people.
Saint Dominic, the 13th-century Spanish friar who founded the Order of Preachers — the Dominicans — gave the name its most powerful cultural anchor. His order became the intellectual backbone of medieval Catholicism, and his name spread through the Catholic world in both masculine and feminine forms. In Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and across the former Habsburg lands, Dominika became a beloved feminine name, carried by saints, scholars, and ordinary women alike through centuries of Catholic observance.
In the 21st century, Dominika has traveled beyond Central Europe into the broader English-speaking world, where its melody — five syllables that cascade with a natural authority — has attracted parents seeking a name that is unmistakably European but not obscure. The name received a complicated cultural moment with the 2013 Jason Matthews novel *Red Sparrow* and its 2018 film adaptation, in which Dominika Egorova is a Russian intelligence officer. The character's combination of ruthless competence and deep interiority gave the name a modern fictional resonance to sit alongside its long sacred history.