A variant related to Helen, from Greek roots associated with light, torch, or shining.
Helany most likely descends from the great Greek name Helene (Ἑλένη), whose etymology scholars have debated for centuries — the most convincing derivation links it to the Proto-Greek root meaning 'torch' or 'bright one,' connecting it to the word for the sun and to the verb 'to shine.' Helen of Troy is the name's most famous bearer, but the fuller story is richer: a Spartan queen whose face launched a thousand ships became, through Homer, the archetype of devastating beauty, and her name went on to be borne by Saint Helena — mother of the Emperor Constantine, finder of the True Cross according to Christian tradition — who carried it from myth into martyrology.
The variant ending -any or -ani, rather than the conventional -ene or -ena, suggests a Portuguese or Brazilian Portuguese phonology, or possibly a creative respelling that gives the classic name a warmer, more open final syllable. In Lusophone naming culture, familiar names are frequently inflected with affectionate suffixes, and Helany fits that pattern naturally — it sounds like a name someone loved enough to make her own. Helany represents a contemporary form of what has always happened with Helen: the name is borrowed, inflected, and made local.
From Eleanor to Elena to Aileen to Eileen, the Helenic root has proven endlessly adaptable across a thousand years of European and Latin American naming history. Helany is the newest branch of that ancient tree, carrying the brightness of its root while belonging entirely to the present.