Likely a variant of Selena or Celina, associated with the moon or heavenly imagery.
Zelina draws from deep Slavic roots, connected to the adjective zelen — meaning "green," the color of new growth, living things, and the natural world in its most vital state. In South Slavic languages, the green of forests and fields was not merely a color but a symbol of life force, and names built on this root carried that vitality implicitly. Zelina is also the name of a small town in the Zagreb County of Croatia (Sveti Ivan Zelina), suggesting the name's embeddedness in a specific geography and folk tradition.
The name belongs to a category of Slavic feminine names that feel both ancient and unexpectedly contemporary — names like Zora, Vesna, and Milena that encode the natural world in their syllables. Zelina has the added distinction of sounding genuinely musical in most European languages: the initial Z gives it energy, the middle vowels give it flow, and the feminine -ina ending places it in a pan-European tradition of elegant feminine names (Marina, Serafina, Celestina) without requiring any single national claim. Outside the Balkans, Zelina remains rare enough to feel distinctive but phonetically accessible enough not to confuse — a combination many parents actively seek.
It carries the green of living things in its very etymology, making it a quietly nature-inspired name for parents who want something rooted in earth and growth without resorting to the obvious botanical vocabulary. In an era when Slavic names like Mila and Zara have gone global, Zelina waits just a step behind, still carrying its forest-green original meaning.