It was once not uncommon in ‘captive’ communist satellite nations (subjugated to the USSR) to give your child a Russian name, mostly to show support for the Soviet system and provide them a leg-up in the commie world. But how many (esp black) Americans do YOU know with a Russian first name?
How amusing it is then that the Obamas’ last federal tax return revealed a fact not publicly known- that ‘Sasha’s actual legal name is ‘Nastasha’, which means ‘birthday’ in the language of the USSR. And something tells me it wasn’t just because it sounded pretty.
Of course it’s a family tradition with Obama- after all, his parents met in Russian language class at the University of Hawaii. And WHAT kind of people took Russian in America in 1961…? Outside of CIA spooks, Lee Harvey Oswald comes to mind…
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different-church-lady
Costello lyrics for $600, Doug.
DougJ
@different-church-lady:
I’ve always wanted to use that one for some reason. I think it’s one of his best lyrics.
Yatsuno
Uhh…Cold War ended 20 years ago dude. Also: the only way you know that is because Obama released his returns. Something your boy Willard was too cowardly to do.
different-church-lady
I wonder what language have they been speaking in Russia since the soviet system collapsed? Or have they all just been sitting there silently the past 22 years?
Certified Mutant Enemy
In Soviet Russia…
Keith G
Ahhh, the near-Christmas slow news days.
Mnemosyne
I’ve met two different African-American ladies named Brigitte lately. And since the French are even worse than the Russkies …
SiubhanDuinne
Oh FFS. It’s right there in the boilerplate sidebar in his Wikipedia entry.
Certified Mutant Enemy
@different-church-lady:
When the Soviet Union fell, its citizens realized the superiority of AMERICAN English and thus abandoned their mother tongue.
Villago Delenda Est
ZOMG, the stupid just keeps on coming, as hot and burning as ever!
schrodinger's cat
Now they are hating on Russians? I thought they found manly man Putin adorable.
Certified Mutant Enemy
@SiubhanDuinne:
But is it mentioned in Conservapedia?
PurpleGirl
Isn’t it possible that one of the Obamas (or maybe both of them) was a fan of Rocky and Bullwinkle and really liked Natasha Fatale and named their baby girl for her. I mean Natasha was a neat character.
elisabeth
@Yatsuno:
Not to mention that those of us who paid attention knew in 2009 Sasha’s full first name.
NotMax
Spent quite some time learning a smattering of Russian from a program on educational TV channel when a kid.
Must have been around ’59 or ’60.
different-church-lady
@Certified Mutant Enemy: …tax forms release you.
schrodinger's cat
No wonder they need their guns, so many imaginary monsters, so little time.
Amir Khalid
@Yatsuno:
That Sasha Obama’s full first name is Natasha may not be widely known, but her full name is a matter of public record like anyone else’s.
And I’m mildly amused to see that some conservative Americans ascribe magical communist powers to the Russian language, just as some Muslims I know here ascribe magical Islamic powers to Arabic and to Arab culture in general.
Jerzy Russian
What’s more, the other sister’s real name is “Boris”.
Certified Mutant Enemy
@schrodinger’s cat:
One would think imaginary guns should be sufficient…
Ripley
The fever dreams are getting wetter, it seems. Or vice versa.
schrodinger's cat
So by the same token if you took German classes in college, that means you are sympathetic to you know who.
BGinCHI
My guess is the idiots want him to be like Lee Harvey Oswald in hope that he shoots the President.
Certified Mutant Enemy
@PurpleGirl:
Or were fans of Natasha Richardson.
Villago Delenda Est
@schrodinger’s cat:
Well, if you study English, obviously it means you’re a secret admirer of George III.
Even though he was a Hanoverian, which means, of course, GERMAN!
Certified Mutant Enemy
@schrodinger’s cat:
I took German in high school and Biblical Hebrew in college. What does that make me?
amk
If only just 1% wingnuttia phobia can be converted into energy, everyone can enjoy free electricity.
Origuy
Russian for “birthday” is dyen’ rozhdyenya (день рождения). Natasha is usually a diminutive for Natalya. Sasha in Russia is usually a diminutive for Alexander, thus a man’s name.
Yatsuno
@PurpleGirl: Is ALWAYS moose and squirrel!
schrodinger's cat
@Villago Delenda Est: True patriots should abandon English, and speak American.
Villago Delenda Est
@elisabeth:
Well, paying attention is secondary to the total shock of blah, yas knows.
Gin & Tonic
‘Nastasha’, which means ‘birthday’ in the language of the USSR
Um, no. It doesn’t.
Villago Delenda Est
@Certified Mutant Enemy:
Confused.
schrodinger's cat
@Certified Mutant Enemy: Self hating Jew?
/snark
Certified Mutant Enemy
@Origuy:
I bet the Obamas like the name Sasha and came up with Natasha from there….
Cassidy
Language of the USSR? Of which of the more than a dozen is he referring to?
amk
Oh boy. If only just 1% wingnuttia phobia can be converted into energy, everyone can enjoy free electricity.
Certified Mutant Enemy
@schrodinger’s cat:
Where can I learn Cherokee, for example?
scav
Who took Russian in the 60s? My Father the Physicist / Engineer that worked for the Navy doing things who couldn’t talk about but apparently went whoooshBoom and then my uncle the real-estate lawyer? Entire classrooms of people, Repeatedly and In Public! In state schools no less On The Mainland In The Very Heartland! apparently took Ruskie, horrors!
Certified Mutant Enemy
@Origuy:
“Commie.”
— freerepublic.com
SiubhanDuinne
@Certified Mutant Enemy: Ooh, I’ll bet it is now!
MattF
I think getting Lee Harvey Oswald in there is the cherry on top of the reeking pile of shit. IMO.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cassidy:
Probably Marxism or Leninism or Stalinism.
Perhaps Brezhnevism?
BGinCHI
@Certified Mutant Enemy: It would be easier to learn the jazz standard.
Certified Mutant Enemy
Reminds of the wingnut who claimed Obama’s parents must have been communists, because only communists got involved in interracial relationships back then.
Citizen_X
@Jerzy Russian:
Wrong! What do you think “Bo” is short for?
Nice attempt to throw us off the scent, Mr. Roosky.
Certified Mutant Enemy
@BGinCHI:
Which I have on my iPod (the Wynton Marsalis version).
SiubhanDuinne
“For he might have been a Roosian,
A French, or Turk, or Proosian,
Or per’aps Eye-tal-eye-an….”
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Gin & Tonic:
The original latin upon which the name is based means “natal day”.
MikeJ
I’m naming my children Gidney and Cloyd.
jl
Clearly, Obama is a traitor, who will betray us to the Soviet threat. We should have listened to McCain’s expert and up-to-date cutting-edge foreign policy advisers. We should have started WWIII with the Soviets over Ossetia! But the sheeples, mezmerized by the Soviet agent/ presidential candidate had no guts.
Warren Terra
@Certified Mutant Enemy:
I continue to insist that in the interests of true Conservatism and to uphold time-tested traditional values, that site most re-name (re-spell?) itself Conservapaedia.
Certified Mutant Enemy
@MikeJ:
My brother wanted to name his son Locutus. Fortunately, my sister in law prevailed…
Certified Mutant Enemy
@jl:
Obama may try reach the Soviet Union through contacts in Czechoslovakia.
schrodinger's cat
@Certified Mutant Enemy: I am lolcatus of the Borg
max
@schrodinger’s cat: Now they are hating on Russians? I thought they found manly man Putin adorable.
What they want is a white male Republican that rules like they see Putin ruling, which is somebody who suppresses people he doesn’t like, gives the oligarchs all the scratch and sticks it to the gays and the blacks and the muslims and whatnot.
max
[‘They pine for a strong Tsar like Dear Vladimir. They found one in Dick Cheney but they can’t figure out how to get him back in office.’]
aimai
@Origuy: Yeah, I thought her name was Alexandra, since her nickname was Sasha. And I thought Alexandra was probably Kenyan.
Seriously, isn’t Natasha a nickname for Natalya/Natalie which is “Nativity” as in the Nativity of Jesus?
Amir Khalid
@Certified Mutant Enemy:
By any chance, is your surname Borg?
balconesfault
Being black and all that, shouldn’t the Obama’s have named her Naytassiya?
balconesfault
@aimai: OK – now you’re hitting too close to home – since our son is named Alexander … and daughter is named Natalia.
And not a drop of Russian blood between us … though lots of Polish and Lithuanian …
Certified Mutant Enemy
@Amir Khalid:
Sadly, no.
Captain C
@Cassidy: Probably Imadethisshitupese. Spoken in one of the Oblasts of Annexia, I think.
Cacti
@Gin & Tonic:
According to teh google, it would be den’ rozhdeniya in its non-cyrillic rendering.
NotMax
Don’t tell them that Maila’s middle name is Ann.
MAO
Trollhattan
Now is to be gettink moose and skvirrel!
They call her Natashia
But she looks like Elsie
I don’t want to go to, uh, worksie.
Earworm, be gone!
Certified Mutant Enemy
@NotMax:
That proves they’re communists, otherwise her middle name would be Ayn.
different-church-lady
@Cacti: you say vash den’ rozhdeniya
It’s moy den’ rozhdeniya, too, da!
NotMax
@NotMax
Malia, of course, not Maila..
Old eyes plus coffee still brewing not a good combo.
Belafon
I blame the minimum wage for this. Clearly, if these people had slaves to exploit, they wouldn’t have time to be coming up with this nonsense.
Steve M.
So when Beyoncé came up with an alter ego named Sasha Fierce, she was referencing … Lenin and Stalin?
Librarian
I guess this means Condi Rice is a Russian agent, since she knows Russian.
Howlin Wolfe
@Certified Mutant Enemy: An anti-semitic semite? Or a semitic anti-semite?
Who knew such evil lurked in language classes!
PurpleGirl
How can the rwnj complain about anyone taking Russian in college? Didn’t Condoleeza Rice speak Russian? She did study Russian culture/history/stuff in college. She was the supposed USSR expert, right?
(There were rumours that she didn’t actually speak Russian though.)
Certified Mutant Enemy
@Howlin Wolfe:
I’m neither German nor a bronze age Semite…
Roger Moore
@Certified Mutant Enemy:
A self-hating Jew?
LAC
The amount of conspiracy laden bullshit inspired by this administration is almost comical. Now its the kids’ turn…lovely
Ash Can
Between this and the bit about the Constitution forbidding titles, it’s pretty evident that to be a true conservative nowadays one must be brain-damaged.
Certified Mutant Enemy
@PurpleGirl:
She was George W. Bush’s resident Soviet Union expert. One wonders if he also had an Ottoman Empire expert.
Larv
@scav:
Or my father, a career Naval officer and lifelong staunch Republican who also did things he can’t talk about (no boom, more NSA). While he did become a spook, that wasn’t why he took Russian (he originally planned to teach high school, but Vietnam interrupted his plans). Especially after Sputnik, the government encouraged people to learn Russian for much the same reason they now want more Arabic speakers. It was considered patriotic, even.
Also, as Origuy notes above, no real commie wannabe would name a girl Sasha, as that’s a masculine (nick)name in Russia. Morans.
Bill E Pilgrim
“Nathalie” in French has roots in the idea of birth, e.g. “ville natale”, place of birth. I don’t speak a word of Russian but would imagine that it’s similar, no? Google tells me that Natasha means “born on Christmas”.
Napoleon
And Natalie Wood was Russian and named her daughter Natasha. Therefore it is un-American to watch Miracle on 34th Street this Christmas season.
cmorenc
@DougJ:
Following the link to the quoted portion from your story, it does appear that (at least in this instance) most of the followup posters to the original seem to recognize that the original poster is a bit over the top, and are having fun with the whole thing, e.g. suggesting that if Obama had a son, he’d have named him Boris instead of Travon. OTOH the original poster in that thread just might be wingnutty enough to take the whole thing seriously. NOT SAYING HERE that the followup posters are necessarily reasonable, fact-informed folks in general about all things Obama (probably wouldn’t have to prod very hard to get several of them snarling and foaming at the mouth about him) – but nevertheless, sometimes even some wingnuts realize, if briefly, that some negative claioms about Obama are too far over the top to take seriously.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Certified Mutant Enemy: I know that he served as his own Gog and Magog expert. And, in his younger years, as Nog and Eggnog expert.
Baud
Two impeachable offenses in back-to-back posts. Nice.
Trollhattan
@NotMax:
Clearly, time for this.
http://api.ning.com/files/YOAV6t1l*NYiesfkEYuG2R5sHfH96uzozcHAj8OUkAEtEgHQL9r-IWWfyw8cuxSvV3OHKxfrhk5-W8In-T*lAiW4sA6Zu9yu/KlibanMao.jpg
Mike in NC
@cmorenc:
As the lawyers here often like to reply, “Assumes facts not in evidence”.
I just came away from reading some of the lunatic shit my wife’s friends forward to her hotmail account. Very tempting to respond with sarcastic comments about the teabagger mindset.
Bargal20
I also heard that Gus Grissom, the guy who supposedly sank his Mercury space capsule by accident, hid the fact that his first name was really “Ivan”.
SiubhanDuinne
@Warren Terra:
Don’t you mean Conservapædia?
karen
Didn’t you hear? That’s the new GOP debt ceiling demand. Obama appoints Dick Cheney then resigns. And if he doesn’t do this he hates America.
SiubhanDuinne
@Certified Mutant Enemy:
The Austro-Hungarian Empire Strikes Back.
sm*t cl*de
‘Nastasha’, which means ‘birthday’ in the language of the USSR
Some Freeploon makes a claim like that, you know every word is going to be a lie including ‘and’ and ‘the’.
ROH-ROH; From the Whackyweedia:
Ramalama
This whole thread is hilarious. Thanks everyone for this.
gogol's wife
Someone up there said Sasha is a boy’s name. It can be the nickname for either Aleksandr or Aleksandra, so it can be either a boy’s or a girl’s name. What it CAN’T be is a nickname for Natasha. So if Obama’s a rooskie spy, his Russian isn’t very good for a native speaker.
gogol's wife
In response to the quotation in the original post, I actually have known a non-trivial number of black Americans named Natasha.
gelfling545
I had numerous students named Natasha over the years. One year there were 3 at the same grade level. All of them were African American as almost all of my students were. I had a few Anastasias and some Sashas also. Just saying, it’s not all that unusual. And it means “birthday”? Dang, I thought it would at least mean
“death to the capitalist running dogs” or something for someone to get worked up over it but mostly I figures it meant “Natasha”. I mean, my name doesn’t mean anything in particular; why should hers? Also, do we know that her name actually is Natasha (not that there’s anything wrong with that) aside from this blathering?
JustRuss
Hopefully they won’t find out I took Spanish in high school. Viva la revolucion!
And what about those cheese-eating freedom haters who took French?
Chris
Ummm… thousands and thousands of people whose job even remotely touched on international relations. Russian was the language of one of the two most powerful countries on the face of the fucking Earth. It was the language of the single biggest priority in American foreign policy for forty years. It was and still is one of the six official languages of the UN. That’s not even touching on all the people who would be interested in Russian for reasons unrelated to politics. Students and professors of Russian history or Russian literature, etc.
Xenophobes really are stupid fucking people. I mean, no matter how much I know it, it still floors me every time I rediscover it…
Jerzy Russian
I am reminded of one of the few scenes from Rocky and Bullwinkle that I remember:
(Boris & Natasha get orders regarding Bullwinkle)
Boris: What does the note say?
Natasha: Keel moose
(Boris drops a piano or some other equally heavy object from the top of a building below. Bullwinkle is standing on the sidewalk below.)
Natasha: There are two more words…
Boris: What are they?
Natasha: “Do not”
(Boris rushes down the stairs and takes the piano on the head).
The sad thing is that Boris and Natasha would win a war of wits with most of the members of the modern GOP
vh
Russian speaker here. Sasha is the diminutive of the Russian male name Aleksandr or its equivalent female form Aleksandra. Natasha (note, it is NOT “Nastasha”) is a diminutive of the name Natalia (=Nathalie) and would only be used in informal speech. Its origin is indeed Natal Day, and was way back used to name girls who were born around Christmas (ahem). All of the Russian Natashas I know of (including Nathalie Wood, BTW, whose birthname was Natalia Nikolaevna Zacharenko) are Natalias underneath; the Sashas are formally Aleksandra or Aleksandr and so on. For some reason, it became fashionable in the US some years ago to give kids full first names equal to Russian nicknames like Tanya (diminutive of Tatiana), Tasha (Natalia again), Tonya (dim. of Antonina), Sasha (dim Alexandra) and so on. Anecdotally, this practice seems more common in the South (home of Real Amurkans, not Commies), among both white and black populations. Here in Tennessee, I have asked on several occasions what someone’s “full” first name is, only to be told Sasha or Natasha or whatever. The use of other nicknames as formal first name (Incl Bill instead of William, Jim or Jimmy instead of James and so on) is also not uncommon in the South, and has always struck me (a New Englander by birth) as odd.
Chris
@max:
There’s a book just waiting to be written on the parallels between the autocratic right wing nutjobs of America and the autocratic left wing nutjobs of Russia during the Cold War (and their descendants today) and how much they’d actually have in common if they lived in the same country.
Heck, they can start with Papa Koch’s economic partnership with Stalin.
vh
Russian speaker here. Natasha (note, it is NOT “Nastasha”) is a diminutive of the name Natalia (=Nathalie) and would only be used in informal speech. Its origin is indeed Natal Day (in Latin, not Russian!), and was way back used to name girls who were born around Christmas (ahem). All of the Russian Natashas I know of (including Nathalie Wood, BTW, whose birthname was Natalia Nikolaevna Zacharenko) are Natalias underneath. For some reason, it became fashionable in the US some years ago to give kids full first names equal to Russian nicknames like Tanya (diminutive of Tatiana), Tasha (Natalia again), Tonya (dim. of Antonina), Sasha (dim Alexandra) and so on. Anecdotally, this practice seems more common in the South (home of Real Amurkans, not Commies), among both white and black populations. Here in Tennessee, I have asked on several occasions what someone’s “full” first name is, only to be told Sasha or Natasha or whatever. The use of other nicknames as formal first name (Incl Bill instead of William, Jim or Jimmy instead of James and so on) is also not uncommon in the South, and has always struck me (a New Englander by birth) as odd.
MattR
@gogol’s wife:
That’s just what he wants you to think :)
You definitely get bonus points for authenticity by using the ‘ks’ instead of ‘x’
MattR
More importantly, Natasha is “Ah, Satan” spelled backwards.
Chris
@gogol’s wife:
What you need to remember about Obama is that, while he is a diabolical mastermind and Communist super spy with a Cunning Plan to destroy America and civilization and replace them with One World Government, he is also a profoundly stupid Man Child and Affirmative Action President who couldn’t even order breakfast without a teleprompter in front of his eyes.
/wingnut
kc
A former co-worker of mine was named Natasha.
She’s a total freaking wingnut. But now I know that’s just cover for her true Marxist leanings.
SiubhanDuinne
@JustRuss:
I took Latin in high school. Guess that makes me Caligula, by definition.
Roger Moore
@vh:
People in the South will also do odd things like give people hyphenated first names (Jim-Bob) or give them initials that don’t actually stand for a name (e.g. Harry S Truman).
Hank
@Bargal20:
Gus Grissom’s middle name was Ivan, not his first name. But he was not a fan of his first name, “Virgil,” either.
cckids
I took Russian history + language in college. We named our daughter Alexandra because we, you know, liked the name. This does not make her Empress of all the Russias.
Though when she was 4, she was so bossy her nickname was “Czarina”.
rikyrah
Um……..
I have known since his 2004 run that her name is Natasha. It’s in Wikipedia too……Google is your friend.
Omnes Omnibus
@cckids: Hell, based one my IRL first name I am one kick ass angel. OTOH, people who are even marginally sane don’t go nuts over the meaning of a person’s name. But wait, I would wonder a bit about any parents who would name their son Richard Bruce Cheney [insert last name].
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
I have to admit, it cracks me up when wingnuts suddenly “discover” things that are common knowledge, like when they were bringing up “new” passages from Dreams From My Father in 2012.
OMG, you guys, this water is, like, wet! Somebody write up a press release!
LanceThruster
The Manchurian Candidate’s Daughter
jl
@rikyrah: But did we know about Boris, Rocky and Bullwinkle? Frostbite Falls is in Minnesota and most of that place is pretty commie, might as well be part of the Soviet Empire of Evil.
The Red Pen
@cmorenc: Some of them are ridiculing this. Some are criticizing the post for going after the kids. Here’s a non-joking response to that:
That was 100% sincere.
unamerican
I think I am in Real Trouble as regards Patriotism and the American Way. I studied French from 1959-1969 (elementary through high school) and Russian from 1969-1973 at university. All this in accredited US schools! Crypto-leftist education, I guess. And worse, I have lived and worked in both France and Russia, and enjoyed both experiences! Compared to those treasons, my subsequent acquisition of a second passport (Australian) and less diligent efforts in German and Japanese are mere misdemeanors.
RobertDSC-Power Mac G5 Dual
I can just imagine one of the WHPC clowns asking the President about this and his verbal flaying of them for all the world to see, complete with a admonition never to ask about the kids ever again.
Omnes Omnibus
There are some very nice pubs in Chelsea.
MattR
@RobertDSC-Power Mac G5 Dual: Followed by the WHPC whining about the unprecedented lack of respect this administration has for the media.
Chris
@unamerican:
I studied Arabic in undergrad (never mind that I’ve forgotten all of it; I studied it, and what kind of people study Arabic?) and am now trying to learn Persian. Same boat, only updated for the enemies of the present.
gogol's wife
@The Red Pen:
They don’t realize that Sasha is Russian too?
AdamK
@Jerzy Russian: That would be the dog.
sm*t cl*de
It was once not uncommon in ‘captive’ communist satellite nations (subjugated to the USSR) to give your child a Russian name
[Citation needed]. Imma guessing that the author has not spent a great deal of time in Poland or Estonia or Ukraine or the Czech Republic.
Omnes Omnibus
@gogol’s wife: Isn’t Sasha a bird?
sparrow
@Omnes Omnibus: Gabriel?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
From Wikipeadia
So in other words Barrack “The totally Kenyan Black Mullah” Obama named his kid “Christmas”, because that’s what good atheist-Muslims do.
Omnes Omnibus
@sparrow: Not answering. But there aren’t that many bad ass angels.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Fallen?
Matt McIrvin
@The Red Pen: That bit about Romney possessing superior masculinity because he sired male children came up during the 2012 campaign as well. It is profoundly weird. I’m amazed that anyone even thinks that way in this century.
phoebes-in-santa fe
I’ve known Sasha’s real name is Natasha and have just been waiting for the Right Wing to flip out. When they didn’t during Obama’s first term, I figured that – maybe – it was no big deal. Guess I was wrong…
Mnemosyne
@Matt McIrvin:
What’s really odd is that in the previous (20th century), the quasi-scientific belief was that men who were too masculine would only produce daughters. I can’t remember the rationale, but apparently this bit of pseudo-science shows up in classic novels like To Have and Have Not.
Ken
So if I’m reading this right – and I may not be, I never took Wingnut in college – the President and his wife are deep operative CIA assassins? Cool. Kind of a Mr. and Mrs. Smith thing.
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: Best character Milton ever wrote.
Mnemosyne
@Ken:
Or “The Americans.”
sw
‘Outside of CIA spooks, Lee Harvey Oswald comes to mind’
Redundant
Steve S
How far off the deep end do you have to be, to think that calling Michelle Obama ‘Mantoinette’ is clever, or even sane?
Stickler
@schrodinger’s cat: Angela Merkel? Who also grew up under Stasi surveillance?
balconesfault
@Matt McIrvin: Interestingly, what research shows is that it’s testosterone levels in the woman that influences whether male children are more likely …
Aussiesmurf
PEOPLE!!!
Natasha *backwards* = ‘Ah, Satan’ !!!!
He IS the anti-christ!!!!!!!!
Tehanu
@MikeJ:
He doesn’t know Gidney and Cloyd from Bonnie and Clyde. Ah, memories… “Shine on, shine on Harvest Earth, up in the sky…”
m.j.
Ted Nugent has a daughter named Sasha.
Just sayin’.
Sherparick
So Angela Lansbury is President Obama’s real mother? Diabolical about how those commie Chinese knew in 1961 that America would elect a Black President in 2008. Everyone knew that would be the way to power!!! Gee, these folks really love to be grifted, they want to be grifted. This is how they got all those poor whites charged up Cemetery Ridge.
I have concluded that Idiocracy is actually a documentary.
Alexi
I have a Russian first name, and I’m an American with no Russian ethnic background. My parents were torn between Anastasia and Alexi, and they picked Alexi because they didn’t like “Stacey” or “Stasia” as nicknames. My dad likes Russian literature. But I don’t think naming a child for one of the last Tsar’s children could possibly be interpreted as an indication of sympathy with the Communists, who killed them.
Oh, wait, what am I thinking? The people who worry about this sort of thing don’t know enough history to make that distinction.
M.C. Simon Milligan
@Mnemosyne: According to my great-grandpaw the logic was that if one’s seed was too powerful one would, and I quote, “blow the balls off of ’em”.
According to my German co-workers, including a man named Sascha, in Germany the name is legally restricted to males in official documentation.
Paul in KY
Rocky & Bullwinkle was a staple on TV in that era & you know who the character ‘Natasha’ was?!
Coincidence? I think not…
Paul in KY
@PurpleGirl: Right on it! Great minds think alike ;-)
Paul in KY
@Certified Mutant Enemy: Very confused :-)
Paul in KY
@balconesfault: Y’all were part of CCCP for awhile…
Paul in KY
@sm*t cl*de: Guess it was the traitourous collaborator types (or sadists) that gave kids Russian names in those countries.
Paul in KY
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Once again, trying to throw us off the scent. Bet she has a ‘real’ Musllim name like ‘Jihada’…
RobNYNY1957
Natasha is the diminutive of “Christmas/Nativity.” The closest English equivalent is “Natalie.” In Spanish, “Navidad.” It’s a specifically Christian name. Sasha is the diminutive of “Alexandra.” There were real Soviets named things like Traktor Fabrik and Oktober Revolution.