Does anyone know what Constantinova means? I presume it just means “constantly bright star” or something like that. But is a Bulgarian name and I can’t find any record of it (other than being the middle name of [name]Nina[/name] Dobrev.) It is way too much of a mouthful in Western countries though, don’t you think? But I was just curious what it means and what people think of it (besides its length.)
Sounds very close to Constantinople to me, or a mixture of [name]Constantine[/name] ([name]Roman[/name] Emperor) and [name]Nova[/name] (exploding, bright, dying star)
This is guess work, but I don’t think it would mean “constantly bright star.” [name]Nova[/name] is often (incorrectly) thought to mean “star,” but astronomically Novae and Supernovae (singular [name]Nova[/name] and Supernova) are explosions of dying stars, not stars themselves. [name]Nova[/name] is the Latin word for “new,” and was given to the star explosion phenomenon by a 16th century astronomer.
The “constantin” part of the name I would think is related to [name]Constantine[/name], Constantius, [name]Konstantinos[/name], etc. and that does mean “constant,” so that part is probably accurate. I would guess that Constantinova is just the Bulgarian feminine form of that name.
And yes, it is a lot of name. Maybe it could work if you used [name]Nova[/name] or some other nickname most of the time, but it’s quite the mouthful.
My guess is that it is simply the feminine form of the surname Constantinov, which is probably a family name for the actress (maybe her mother’s maiden name?). In Russian and some other eastern European countries, there are feminine and masculine forms of surnames. For example, the feminine form of Romanov is Romanova. Googling, I couldn’t find any references to Constantinov, but Konstantinov/Konstantinova is a legitimate Russian last name.
Edit: I just looked up Nina Dobrev at Wikipedia, and her full name is actually Nikolina Konstantinova Dobreva, so yeah, it’s probably is the feminine version of Konstantinov. In addition, the middle name in Bulgarian is called a patronymic and based on the father’s given name, so her father’s name was most likely Konstantine. That would mean the name Konstantinova probably means “daughter of Konstantine”.
I think mega_muffin hit on it, but I’ll echo…to me it looks like a feminine surname.
OH yes! I think Mega_muffin is right! Russian names often have the form of First Name Paternal Name Surname, so if a father’s first name is [name]Vladimir[/name], the daughter’s “middle” or paternal name might be Vladimirovna. I don’t know if Bulgarian names follow a similar pattern, but that seems a logical source.