Malvina is a feminine given name derived from the

Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...

''Mala-mhìn'', meaning "smooth brow". It was popularized by the 18th century Scottish poet

James Macpherson James Macpherson ( Gaelic: ''Seumas MacMhuirich'' or ''Seumas Mac a' Phearsain''; 27 October 1736 – 17 February 1796) was a Scottish writer, poet, literary collector, and politician. He is known for the Ossian cycle of epic poems, which he ...

. Other names popularised by Macpherson became popular in

Scandinavia Scandinavia is a subregion#Europe, subregion of northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also ...

on account of

Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...

, an admirer of Macpherson's Ossianic poetry, who was the godfather of several children of Jean Baptiste Jules Bernadotte, an officer of his who ruled Norway and Sweden in the early 19th century. The Argentinian name for the

Falkland Islands The Falkland Islands (; ), commonly referred to as The Falklands, is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and from Cape Dub ...

, ''Las Malvinas'', is not etymologically related to ''Malvina'', but is instead derived from the name of St Malo, a seaport in

Brittany Brittany ( ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the north-west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica in Roman Gaul. It became an Kingdom of Brittany, independent kingdom and then a Duch ...

People

* Malvina Bolus (1906–1997), Canadian historian, art collector, editor of the Hudson's Bay Company magazine "The Beaver" * Malvina Garrigues (Schnorr von Carolsfeld) (1825–1904), Danish-German operatic soprano *

Malvina Hoffman Malvina Cornell Hoffman (June 15, 1885July 10, 1966) was an American sculpture, sculptor and author, well known for her life-size bronze sculptures of people. She also worked in plaster and marble. Hoffman created portrait busts of working-class ...

(1887–1966), American sculptor * Malvina Longfellow (1889–1962), American stage and silent movie actress * Malvina Major (born 1943), New Zealand singer * Malvina Pastorino (1916-1994), Argentine film actress * Malvina Reynolds (1900–1978), American folk/blues singer-songwriter and political activist * Malvina Shanklin Harlan (1839–1916), American wife of a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, grandmother of another U.S. Supreme Court Justice, and author of a 1915 memoir * Malvina Bovi Van Overberghe (1900–1983), Belgian operatic soprano known as Vina Bovy * Malvina Evalyn Wood (1893–1976), Australian university librarian and college warden

Fictional characters

* Malvina is the bride or lover of

Oscar Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to: People and fictional and mythical characters * Oscar (given name), including lists of people and fictional characters named Oscar, Óscar or Oskar * Oscar (footballer, born 1954), Brazilian footballer ...

in the ''

Ossian Ossian (; Irish Gaelic/Scottish Gaelic: ''Oisean'') is the narrator and purported author of a cycle of epic poems published by the Scottish poet James Macpherson, originally as ''Fingal'' (1761) and ''Temora (poem), Temora'' (1763), and later c ...

'' cycle of

. * Thomas Campbell's poem ''Lord Ullin's Daughter'' was translated into the

Russian language Russian is an East Slavic languages, East Slavic language belonging to the Balto-Slavic languages, Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. It is one of the four extant East Slavic languages, and is ...

by the Romantic poet Vasiliy Zhukovsky. In Zhukovsky's translation, the title character, who is left unnamed in Campbell's original, is given the name Malvina, which the Russian poet likely borrowed from

's ''

''.

Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov ( ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian and American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Rus ...

has translated Zhukovsky's translation into English to demonstrate the changes that were made.Vladimir Nabokov (2008), ''Verses and Versions: Three Centuries of Russian Poetry'', Harcourt, Inc. Pages 52-57. *Malvina, the girl with blue hair – a doll-heroine from Aleksey Tolstoy's 1936 book '' The Golden Key, or the Adventures of Buratino''. *Malvina is also the name of the main antagonist in the 1992 Mexican telenovela '' María Mercedes''.

References

{{given name English-language feminine given names Feminine given names Scottish feminine given names