Alphabet wars.

[workerbee73.livejournal.com]

Question for the class: 

Can anyone shed some light on the different spellings of Natasha's name?  Specifically I'm thinking "Romanoff" versus "Romanov."  I was noticing that the AO3 tag has "Romanov" while in the movie they spell it "Romanoff."  I suspect it has something to do with Russian grammar/spelling and American bungling of same.  There's also the "Natalia" v. "Natasha" thing, which if I understand right she changed when she defected.  (Or did I just read that in a fic somewhere and now it's my headcanon?)

And as a follow-up, is there a good case to be made that the movie got it wrong by going with "ff" instead of "v"?  Or to put it simply, why deviate from movie!canon?

Comments

[ashen_key]

As far as I understand it -

Both Romanoff and Romanov are legitimate transliterations of the same last name from the Cyrillic, although I think "Romanoff" is a bit old-fashioned. If she were speaking in Russian/still being a Russian citizen, her name would be "Romanova". But in English, with non-Russian citizens, the "a" at the end tends to be dropped because in English the surnames don't tend to change depending on the gender.

In my headcanon, she uses the "Romanoff" spelling in English partly because she just likes it, partly to avoid the "are you related to the tzars" thing. The Natalya vs Natasha thing...

My headcanon is that "Natasha" is now her legal first name as far as SHIELD and her visa are concerned. Natasha, being the diminutive friends would have called her (her parents probably switched between "Natasha" and "Natashenka"), is who she is at the core of herself. Natalya Alianovna Romanova was an orphan girl who was taken and remade and played so many parts (one of those parts being the Natalya the Red Room made her into); "Natasha" is who she remained even as she was also being Nathalie, Natalia, Nadine, Sofia, etc.

[workerbee73.livejournal.com]

I very much approve of this headcanon! :D Goes beautifully with her whole re-claiming/re-making theme.

**takes headcanon home and adopts it**

[ashen_key]

Goes beautifully with her whole re-claiming/re-making theme.

Exactly! :D

And, heeee, yay.

[workerbee73.livejournal.com]

OMG your icon. **DIES**

Awesome. Hilariously, hilariously awesome.

[ashen_key]

It is possibly my favourite icon ever - I lost most of my icons over here when I let my paid account fade away (all my icons are now over on DW, which is annoying now I have a new shiny fandom, but ah well), but I'm so pleased LJ let me keep this one.

And it seemed appropriate *g*

[workerbee73.livejournal.com]

It's seriously badass. I'm glad LJ spared it too. :)