The term is related to kraj or krai, originally meanings land, country or edge[1] and today denoting a region or province, usually remote from urban centers.
[2] In Old East Slavic: Ѹкраина/Ꙋкраина, romanized: Oukraina [uˈkrɑjinɑ]) appears in the Hypatian Codex of c. 1425 under the year 1187 in reference to a part of the territory of Kievan Rus',[3] meaning specifically region or land itself rather than borderland.
The name of Ukraine derives from Old East Slavic украина (ukraina) 'boundary, outskirts, borderland', a compound of оу (u) 'beside, at' + краи (krai) 'land, edge' + -ина (-ina), a suffix creating a feminine noun.
[6] In modern Slavic languages variations of kraj or krai mean a wide array thing, such as "edge, country, land, end, region, bank, shore, side, rim, piece (of wood), area.
"[7] In some South Slavic languages, including Serbo-Croatian and Slovene, the word krajina or its cognate still refers primarily to a border, fringe, or borderland of a country (sometimes with an established military defense), and secondarily to a region, area, or landscape.