Background of an 'Alian Romanov'

[ashen_key]

Hey guys! Long time lurker, first time poster. If I get anything wrong, sorry!

SETTING: Turn of the century Russian Empire
SEARCH TERMS: Alian name meaning ; Alian name origin ; Alian Russian name ; Alian Jewish ; Alianovna [which brought me back to the character I'm trying to research FOR, oops] ; variations of all of the above

Comments

[lilacsigil]

Blue/green eyes are relatively common in Persia and areas north towards Russia, and red hair is also reasonably frequent, though not as much as in, say, Celtic populations. Perhaps it could be a family name from Persian (or other Caucasian) ancestors? The Persian/Russian border changed a lot in the 19th century and while Volgograd was always on the Russian side, it's very close to that border.

[ashen_key]

Oooh, didn't know about the red hair. I think the consensus so far is that Natasha has Bashkir ancestry, but thank you!

[transemacabre]

I know a TON of Persians/Iranians and yes, there are definitely redheads and (rare) natural blonds in those communities.

A good friend of mine was born to a Persian Jewish family in Soviet-era Azerbaijan, and her parents gave her a very Russian name -- Marina! And my ex, who is an American-raised Persian boy, once responded to an EMT call here in NYC only to find that the people who'd called 911 were a Russian immigrant family and not a one of them could speak English. They're all in a panic until teeny tiny ancient grandma walks up and starts speaking to my ex in Farsi! Yes, she was another Persian Jew who'd married a Russian, had Russian kids and grandkids, and decades later saved the day by being able to communicate with my ex in Farsi.

Anyway, sorry for this tangent, I bring it up mostly because ScarJo's mother's family were Jews from Belarus so I like to think of Natasha having some Jewish ancestry :)

[ashen_key]

I've been semi-assuming that Alian might have been implying Jewish ancestry for a while now, because all of the information I was hitting was just 'Hebrew name', but I couldn't find anything particularly solid. Hence finally giving up and asking here before I said anything firm in fic, which I'm so glad I did! I certainly wasn't finding any of this on my own.

And that anecdote is awesome :D Yaaaay tiny grandmothers saving the day.

[leo_nafigator]

From the name and place Alian Romanov may belong to some smaller nationalities behind the Volga river. They are usually muslim and may be both of european/caucasian race (like tatar) or asiatic/mongolian (like bashkir). The "russian" name "Romanov" should not confuse you. Family names were not common for that nationals and adopted in the late 19th century. As a family name were taken father's name, name of his sovereign of birth place. The most common basic for family name was name of the oldest known family ancestor (they were obliged to know all of them at least until the 5. generation backwards.

Another confusion may occur from the similarity with the name of the last russian emperors. Nice version for the fiction, but in the reality they all were killed.

[ashen_key]

Yeah, I figured that Natasha had no actual ties to the imperial family, otherwise....yeah, not looking good for their survival there. Would you find it semi-plausible that her father's family adopted the surname anyway? (For....whatever reasons, although I've found other Russian people who have that surname, so it doesn't seeeeem to be only House Romanov. But I could be mistaken!)

And thank you for answering!

[leo_nafigator]

Well, there are some ways. Remember that question about the surname could sound like "who's are You?" in old Russia

[ashen_key]

Oh thank you! I was mentally thinking that those would be believable ways, I just wanted to check before I solidified.

You've been really helpful :D

[zedille]

I think at some point everyone in Marvel fandom runs across this question, haha. I know I've been there, too, though I've since decided to hand-wave it as "someone at Marvel didn't know what they were doing back in the day

[full_metal_ox]

I think at some point everyone in Marvel fandom runs across this question, haha. I know I've been there, too, though I've since decided to hand-wave it as "someone at Marvel didn't know what they were doing back in the day".

In other words: "Romanov(a)" was the first Russian name Lee and/or Kirby could think of. (See also: Rasputin, Gregori.) (And just how did the trope of "Natasha" as a stock given name for Russian female spies get started, anyway? The Trope Maker seems to be the Rocky and Bullwinkle character (circa 1959), but how did they arrive at her name? Could the heroine of War and Peace have supplied the first Russian female given name that came to Jay Ward's mind?)

Otherwise there's also the possibility that Alianovna isn't her actual patronymic, and it's just something the Red Room/her trainers came up with? (Which doesn't help you much either but it's another avenue of exploration in-universe. Though it doesn't explain why the Red Room is giving her that kind of a fake patronymic, anyway.)Because the Red Room is one of

[ashen_key]

Just handwaving it would make life SO MUCH EASIER. Sadly, I keep running into needing a possible, at least semi-plausible reason to help fill in Natasha's background. And all the answers here really ARE fleshing out her background in really awesome ways, so :D

I can't see why the RR would give her such an unusual patronymic, unfortunately. Or why she'd keep it once she got out if it was fake.

I'd love 'Alia' to be her mum's name, but it doesn't work with the patronymic rules, and I'm back to 'why Alia'.

OH COMICS.

And is okay! Thanks anyway :D

[transemacabre]

My thinking is that Stan Lee and Don Rico likely came across this patronymic in an obscure library book or something -- Natasha first appeared in what, 1964? Research opportunities for creating authentic Russian/Soviet characters were uhhhh limited. With little to no frame of reference, neither writer probably realized anything was out of the ordinary with this patronymic. We should probably be grateful that her name isn't some godawful "foreign-sounding" gobbledygook.

[irien24]

Ask to you questions (sorry from my English, please)

1. Alian - russians have no such name
"Ali" or "Alisher" is persian names, if Natasha's father was a Persian. But his wasn't be "Romanov"!!! His name could be "Veliev' / 'Nagiev" / "Rahmonov'
2. Then original name will be 'Natalia Aliyevna ?Velieva?'? But she is not a fair-skinned and blue/green-eyed redhead. She has a brown eyes and dark
hair
3. Natasha could born 1928 in Stalingrad (!)

P.S. Russians have many different names - Andrey, Petr, Maxim, Oleg (men) and Olga, Vera, Svetlana, Iryna, (women) . My name is Liudmyla ;) It is really russians name,

[ditaykan]

I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say or what you think the original poster was attempting to say, but I get the impression you think they're attempting to make an original character?

In which case, they're talking about this Natasha Romanova: http://marvel.wikia.com/Natalia_Romanova_(Earth-616)

It's 'rumoured' that her original name was Natalia Alianovna Shostakova, but I don't know about that. Is Shostakova a reasonable Russian or Persian family name?

My apologies if I've misunderstood what you were trying to say!

[knowledgequeen]

I'm not the person you were replying to, but Shostakova is definitely a Russian name - there was a composer named Dmitri Dmitrievich Shostakovich who came from Saint-Petersburg.

However, Shostakova would not have been Natasha's original name - it was the surname of Aleksei Shostakov, the Red Guardian. The Red Room married Natasha off to the Red Guardian around when she was having an affair with James Barnes, the Winter Soldier, so Shostakova would have been her married name, not her original name.

[irien24]

Shostakova comes from the surname of her (ex)husband Alexi Shostakov. Her Maiden/original name is Natalia Alianovna Romanova.

[jazzzi]

When I look at "Alianovna" it reminds me of russian name Ульян, the patronym from it will be "Ulyanovna", may be it changed weirdly during transliteration. Name Ульян today is rare and sounds archaic, but at the beginning of the century it was not unusual.

[ashen_key]

Ooh, not a bad idea! I'm going with Alian being of Bashkir descent, but thank you!