Slobodan (Serbian Cyrillic: Слободан) is a Serbo-Croatian masculine given name which means "free" (sloboda / слобода meaning "freedom, liberty") used among other South Slavs as well.
It was coined by Serbian liberal politician Vladimir Jovanović who, inspired by John Stuart Mill's essay On Liberty baptised his son as Slobodan in 1869 and his daughter Pravda (Justice) in 1871.
During the decade after World War II, the name Slobodan (means "freedom") became the most popular Serbian male name,[1] and it remained so until 1980.
[2] Common derived nicknames are Sloba, Slobo, Boban, Boba, Bobi and Čobi.
A rare short form of the name Slobodan is Bodan, used sometimes in North Macedonia however the name Bodan is probably also a version of Bogdan without the "g" or "h" sound as evidenced that some of the people with this name celebrate their nameday on the 6th or 7 January around Orthodox Christmas (Koleda).