What’s in a name?

After many instances of pronouncing my Twitter username and this domain for friends and colleagues, I’ve realized I never included an explanation of this anywhere public.

A super short history

“Talkanatalka” began in college as a name/username for most of the things I did online. An ex-boyfriend of mine suggested the combination to me and I really liked how personal it was to me, but also mysterious in meaning.

What it means

My family is Ukrainian (both sets of grandparents immigrated over from Ukraine before my parents were born) and in Ukrainian, my name is Natalia (or some variation of that—I answer to any similar name in Ukrainian company), which then gets nicknamed to Natalka. In Ukrainian, that’s Наталка.

My close family has always shortened this to Talka when speaking to or about me—I’ve had the nickname longer than my actual memories go back. Some of my close friends have adopted this nickname for me as they’ve known me through the years, which I love.

How to pronounce Talkanatalka

This is really the only thing most people want to know.

Talka: tahl-kuh, NOT “talk”-a

Natalka: nuh-tal-kuh

Here’s a quick recording I made to demonstrate: Talkanatalka pronunciation

If you’re curious about how it sounds in Ukrainian, this is pretty close: http://forvo.com/word/natalka/

There you go!