Baby Name Anastasia: Dramatic and Meaningful

The baby name Anastasia brings to mind a doomed Russian princess and the animated movie that gave her a happy ending.

Thanks to Photoquilty for suggesting our Baby Name of the Day.

RESURRECTION

The baby name Anastasia comes from the Greek anastasis – resurrection. Pronounce it with four syllables, or maybe even five. Like Isabella and Olivia, it’s a dramatic, elaborate choice.

A handful of early saints answered to the name, as well as the masculine form – Anastasius.

The earliest saint by the name died during the Diocletian persecutions in the 300s.

We find more early uses of the name in the east, though not exclusively so:

• A second Saint Anastasia was a sixth century lady-in-waiting to the Byzantine Empress Theodora.
• Aelia Anastasia was the wife of sixth century Roman Emperor Tiberius II Constantine.
• The eleventh century Anastasia of Kiev became Queen of Hungary.
• Christine de Pisan mentions an illuminator of manuscripts working in Paris circa 1400 called Anastasia.
• Sixteenth century Anastasia was wife of Russian Tsar Ivan the Terrible.
• King Nikola I of Montenegro used the name for his daughter, born in 1868.
• Anastasia Arapova married Carl Gustaf Mannerheim, the military commander and Marshal of Finland. She gave the French version of her name, Anastasie, to their daughter.
• Countess Anastasia Mikhailovna de Torby was a Romanov cousin known as Zia.

A handful of Russian royals make that list, and the most famous bearer also comes from St. Petersburg.

THE GRAND DUCHESS ANASTASIA

Born in 1901, the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his wife, Tsarina Alexandra, would live a short and tragic life.

In the early twentieth century, only a boy could inherit the throne. And so a fourth daughter – younger sister to Olga, Tatiana, and Maria – was considered a disappointment. Still, there’s no evidence her childhood was anything but happy. And, of course, quite privileged.

That changed after the birth of her younger brother, the long-awaited heir to the Romanov throne. You probably know the story: Alexei inherited hemophilia, making even the smallest of childhood scrapes and tumbles potentially deadly. His distraught mother sound the intervention of Rasputin, a self-proclaimed healer.

It became a scandal – the royal family so entangled with an outsider of dubious reputation. Historians suggest it contributed to the downfall of the Romanovs, making them unpopular.

Anastasia was still a child when the Russian Revolution began in 1917. Her father abdicated later that year, and the family was placed under house arrest in Siberia.

ANNA ANDERSON

We now know that the family – including Anastasia – met their deaths in July of 1918 at the hands of Bolsheviks. She was just 17 years old.

But we know that based on DNA evidence from 2007. For decades, the fate of the Romanovs wasn’t crystal clear.

In the 1920s, Anna Anderson surfaced, claiming that she’d survived the massacre with the help of a sympathetic guard.

The story captivated the world. How could it not? We all wanted to believe that the teenaged princess survived the massacre. The meaning of the late royal’s name – resurrection – added to the appeal of the tale.

SILVER SCREEN

In 1956, Ingrid Bergman played Anna Anderson in a movie called Anastasia. It’s presented as a scam, a swindle designed to access cash held in reserve for the family – or is it? Just enough ambiguity hints at how very much we all want the story to be true. Bergman won an Oscar for the role.

Other imposters surfaced, but for decades all we had was a lingering sense that maybe – just maybe – Anastasia had lived.

By 1984, Anna Anderson passed away and a few years later, DNA evidence confirmed that she was not a Romanov after all.

PUTTING IT TO MUSIC

By 1997, the Soviet Union had fallen and the Cold War between the US and Russia effectively ended.

With time passing, the story of Anastasia began to feel more like a fairytale than a real-life tragedy.

Time for a second movie titled Anastasia.

This time, it’s animated. And musical!

Once again, a swindle is planned by two conmen. They hope to find an Anastasia look-alike to claim her fortune. Instead, they find the real-life Anastasia, who has spent a few years in an orphanage as Anya. She suffered a fall during her dramatic escape from the palace, and doesn’t remember a thing.

There’s a love story, a talking bat, and a happy ending – though not one that sees the princess returning to rule Russia.