Zdeněk is a
Czech given name derived from the
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...
name
Sidonius. contested the relation with the Latin name, and an alternative etymology is a diminutive of
Zdeslav.
[Jan Svoboda, Staročeská osobní jména se základem sd , sdě-, :Onomastica nr 7, r. IV, z. 2, Wrocław 1958]
The South Slavic counterpart is
Zdenko. The feminine counterpart is
Zdenka.
In
Slovenian, it means