Glad you've seen it referenced because I was starting to think I'd just pulled it out of thin air. Which, fun, but oops. ...I don't know if I know enough history to write something on this, but it's a curiosity, isn't it?

I don't think I'd do straight-up historical if I was going to write it, b/c you couldn't do that without the comic voodoo on the age thing, and I guess you could go with the descendant route, but I kind of like it as symbolism too. Maybe a symbolism she chooses for herself after leaving the Red Room, as a symbol of what has been taken from her, but also a call back to the 'core' of who and what she is? Hmm, I dunno. Rambling here.

No, I'd want to avoid comic voodoo (and that is such a great name for it, ha) because I do so love how her and Clint are the non-enhanced, 100% human and 100% talented people. Hmm, something about legacies and lost children...Anastasia's family executed and her left behind... I'm going to end up writing name fic at some point, aren't I? *grins* Watched Avengers for the second time today and paid so much attention to the names Natasha uses and is given by other people, especially Clint, seriously.

I think I'm all about the Anastasia symbolism here.

OMG the names. YES. (It's not like I've obsessively watched with this in mind or anything...)

Okay, correct if I'm wrong then, since you've seen it way more times than me, you lucky lady ;) but:
Coulson says, "Tasha, Barton's been compromised."
She introduces herself to Bruce as Natasha Romanoff.
Coulson says Agent Romanoff when she first shows up on the hellicarrier.
Clint calls her Tasha when he gets bonked over the head, then it's Tasha and one Natasha when they're in the infirmary, and then Nat the two times he addresses her over the comms during the big fight.

Am I missing any?

(Because seriously, I am having thoughts about names like woah.)

Fury refers to her as Agent Romanoff when he asks her to show Banner to his lab.

Tony also calls her Agent Romanoff when he shows up in Germany.

When was the first 'Tasha' in the recovery scene? I don't remember that.

(And for some reason it's the whispered/breathed/like-a-prayer "Natasha" that he says to her in the recovery scene that just KILLS me. Srsly. **is ded**)

Must just be Natasha then in the infirmary. I wondered if i'd misheard that one. (There were more chatty people in my second viewing *sigh*.)

The direction my thoughts are going in: Clint calls her Nat when it's mission time, when they're with other people, because everyone else calls her Agent or by whatever aliase she's going by, because they don't know any better, but Clint has earned the familiarity of Nat. (I am also, thanks to the Lifelines fic, thinking that when she was younger it was actually Gnat, but now she's older it's Nat, except for the times he's teasing her and everyone else hears Nat, but Natasha knows that he means Gnat, she just knows.)

Then Clint and Coulson call her Tasha, when it counts, when it's important, when they need to get her attention, when they need her to listen. The fact that Coulon calls her this as well, I don't think Tasha is an entirely private Clint/Natasha thing, but rather a, well, a kind of team thing. That the three of them worked together so closely, shared a safehouse or space, lived inside each other pockets, and there are some things that you can't share without becoming on first name terms. But Tasha isn't her actual name, right? Nickname. Friendly. Inclusive. Telling her that she's more than Natasha, she's one of them.

But then we have Natasha in that infirmary scene, the one that breaks us, the one time that Clint actually calls her by her name. This is one of the things that makes me think she chose Natasha Romanoff herself and not just because it fits in with the reclaiming theme. I think, just maybe, when Clint uses Natasha it's rare and it means you, it means the person that you chose to be, it means serious and just them, no teasing, no one else around, not even Coulson, no team, just and only Natasha.

(Wow, today is a huge comment day for me it seems. Earlier I splurged in comments over here. Which, any thoughts on that too? *grins*)