The MCU version of Black Widow has an often-mentioned issue with her Russian name, but her solo movie, 2021’s original of The Avengers, Black Widow’s real name is Natalia Alianovna "Natasha" Romanoff. For many viewers, there isn’t any apparent issue with the name, but it violates Russian naming conventions, which some viewers have noted throughout Black Widow’s time as one of the MCU’s most prominent heroes. Black Widow explores Natasha’s full origin story, providing insight into her MCU character arc and providing a good reason for her name issue.
Russian surnames will be spelled and pronounced differently, depending on the individual’s gender. Natasha’s surname of Romanoff breaks this rule because it’s the masculine version of the name. If Natasha’s name followed Russian naming conventions, it’d be “Romanova.” It’s a strange error that’s been noted about the MCU version of the character for years, but it makes sense given the context of Natasha’s origin in Black Widow.
The Avengers. The prologue of Black Widow reveals that a young Natasha spent three years in the United States under deep cover, posing as a member of a normal suburban family along with fellow Red Room spies Melina Vostokoff and Yelena Belova, as well as the Soviet super-soldier Alexei Shostakov, aka the Red Guardian. During the opening credits montage, Natasha’s Red Room training is shown, including her indoctrination that helped her perfectly blend in with American society. This education explains her incorrect Russian name.
Although Natasha is a Russian native, her Red Room education taught her little about the real world, outside of helping her remain undercover in the United States. This suggests that, even though the Red Room is a Soviet-era spy program, it never taught her about her native language’s naming conventions. The result was a surname that most Americans might not notice any errors in, but a native Russian speaker would spot right away. Though Black Widow likely learned of this many years later upon leaving the Red Room and entering into the real world, at this point it seems unlikely she would have been willing to change her name, especially given it is one of the few remaining ties she had with her Red Room family.
Natasha’s middle name breaks a similar rule, albeit for a different reason. Russian middle names come from an individual’s father’s name, plus a gender-specific suffix. Natasha’s middle name, Alianovna, doesn’t reflect her father’s name, Ivan. This error likely has less to do with the Red Room’s indoctrination program than it does the fact that Natasha (and likely the Red Room) never knew her father’s name until visit Vormir to retrieve the Soul Stone.
Agent Carter, where it was part of Leviathan, the Soviet’s equivalent to Nazi ’s Hydra. Even in its earliest days, the Red Room’s indoctrination program focused on combat, assassination, and American culture for the sake of deep-cover work, with apparently little focus on things like Russian naming conventions. Agent Carter, like Black Widow, explained Natasha’s origin as well as the error in her Russian name.
