Rokselana

This name derives from the Old Persian “Roušanak / Roshanak” (bright, dawn, a window of light, shining). The version “Roxana” and its variants have come from the Ancient Greek “Rhōxā́nē (Ῥωξᾱ́νη).” Roxana is the Greek name of a Bactrian noblewoman who was the daughter of Oxyartes of Bactria (not Sogdiana) and the official wife of Alexander the Great. Roxane is the name of Cyrano’s love in the famous French play Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand. Hürrem Sultan “Roxelana” (Alexandra Anastasia Lisowska) was the legal wife and Haseki sultan of Suleiman the Magnificent and the mother of Şehzade Mehmed, Mihrimah Sultan, Sultan Selim II and Şehzade Bayezid of the Ottoman Empire.