zvani

Zvani is a term found in several South Slavic languages used to indicate that a person or entity is named or called by a given name or epithet. It is derived from the verb zvati 'to call' and functions as a descriptive participial adjective before a noun, effectively meaning 'named' or 'called'. In everyday usage, the phrase "zvani X" introduces someone by the name that follows; for example, "čovjek zvani Marko" translates to "a man named Marko." The exact form or agreement of zvani can vary by dialect and historical register, and it is often encountered in formal, literary, or biographical contexts as a compact way to present a person by name.

The construction is most commonly described in Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian, where it appears in biographical notes, historical writings, and narrative passages. As a grammatical descriptor rather than a separate lexical item, zvani serves to identify an entity by the name by which it is known.

See also: zvati, naziv, epithet