Natasha Obama (right) with her sister Malia (left) and President Barack Obama in 2012.
Natasha Obama is a search we see a lot of, so we’d like to clarify for our readers: Natasha Obama is the real name of Sasha Obama, the second daughter of U.S. President Barack Obama. It’s just that her birth name of Natasha is rarely ever used; Sasha is the main event.
Natasha Obama is lifted by her father, President Barack Obama, in a White House elevator in May of 2009.
Natasha Obama was just seven years old when her father became president in 2008; that made her “the youngest resident of the White House since John F. Kennedy Jr. arrived as an infant in 1961.” That led to cute shots like the one above, and this snapshot of Oval Office hijinks:
Natasha Obama prepares to ambush her dad in 2009.
We do know that Natasha Obama was born in the University of Chicago Hospital on June 10, 2001, but we can’t find any record of why her parents chose that name. It doesn’t seem to be a family name, at least not based on the family trees of Barack Obama and Sasha’s mom, the former Michelle Robinson. Instead we see names like Ann, Ruth, Madelyn, Marian and Akuma.
Barack Obama mentions her birth in his book The Audacity of Hope (“By the time Sasha was born — just as beautiful, and almost as calm as her sister…”) but calls her only Sasha throughout the book. Like most First Families, the Obamas protect their daughters’ privacy pretty fiercely (Natasha isn’t even on Facebook) so further details are not forthcoming.
She may have been a youngster in 2009, but Sasha is now old enough to do things like greet Pope Francis on his visit to the United States earlier this year. (That’s her in the pink, gray and white skirt; her sister Malia is shaking the pope’s hand.)
And she was old enough to play an enthusiastic role in the annual White House turkey pardon last Thanksgiving. That’s her in the glasses. Quite a way to grow up.
We’ll continue to refer to her as Sasha Obama, since that is how the White House refers to her. But to say it formally: We do have a full biography of Natasha Obama »
(All official White House photos by veteran photographer Pete Souza.)
Now I finally know who Natasha Obama is! (Truth be told, this is Fritz Holznagel, the author of the post. I’m just checking our new commenting function.)