I recently learned that the name “Natasha” is not so desirable in some parts of the world as it is in Russia and in some areas in the U.S. In fact, as my Turkish friend reported to me, it is down-right undesirable in his home country. There, 'natasha' is a common slang word that refers to prostitutes of Slavic descent. Thankfully, he doesn’t hold this against me and does not think badly about me, despite my name:) I didn’t catch the history of why my name was selected to refer to women who came over from Russia etc to (unwillingly) ply their trade but I am endeavoring to make the effort to find out. I was so surprised by this discovery that I ran some internet searches and found that yes, ‘natasha’ and its meaning is in fact documented in a dictionary somewhere. I shared this information with my younger brother and he—who is probably much more well-read than I am—reminded me that he had already told me about ‘the natashas’ and the Eastern European sex trade years ago (apparently I was not listening). He also told me about a book on the subject, The Natashas, that he had read and found to be very informative. Looks like I’ll be adding this to my reading list and making a note to change my name when I visit Turkey.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Natasha = Prostitute
I recently learned that the name “Natasha” is not so desirable in some parts of the world as it is in Russia and in some areas in the U.S. In fact, as my Turkish friend reported to me, it is down-right undesirable in his home country. There, 'natasha' is a common slang word that refers to prostitutes of Slavic descent. Thankfully, he doesn’t hold this against me and does not think badly about me, despite my name:) I didn’t catch the history of why my name was selected to refer to women who came over from Russia etc to (unwillingly) ply their trade but I am endeavoring to make the effort to find out. I was so surprised by this discovery that I ran some internet searches and found that yes, ‘natasha’ and its meaning is in fact documented in a dictionary somewhere. I shared this information with my younger brother and he—who is probably much more well-read than I am—reminded me that he had already told me about ‘the natashas’ and the Eastern European sex trade years ago (apparently I was not listening). He also told me about a book on the subject, The Natashas, that he had read and found to be very informative. Looks like I’ll be adding this to my reading list and making a note to change my name when I visit Turkey.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I dont know the reason why the turkish people "perverted" the Natasha name. It is obviously very beautiful name and it should be very shameful for the turkish men to it give it a such a negative meaning. My name is Nataliya, and friends rarely call me Natasha, but these two are the same names, so when i go to turkey, even if i say my name is Nataliya some men look at me as if i am a prostitute.
ReplyDeleteThis is actually very sad. I am from Ukraine and i went to Antaliya( southern turkey) for vocation couple of times. I dont think i will go there again though. The way men looked at me( not all of them of course) made me feel very uncomfortable.