“Baba Yaga,” mostly used in Eastern Slavic languages, has a variety of meanings. Baba in Old Russian can be translated most commonly to “old woman” or “grandmother” (Johns 40).
Yaga, however has been derived from various Slavic lands, potentially giving it multiple meanings based on the Slavic language being used. “The word appears in Old Church Slavonic as jezal jedza (‘disease, illness’). In Serbo-Croatian there is jeza (‘horror, shudder, chill’), in Slovenian jeza (‘anger’), in Old Czech jeze (‘witch, legendary evil female being’) and modern Czech jezinka (‘wicked wood nymph, dryas’), in Polish jedza (‘witch, evil woman, fury’)…” (Johns 10).