Imperial Family Handwriting.

Never. All the tandem signatures I've seen feature the girls' full names:




And I've been wondering about that very fact lately. It seems odd that the notion of OTMA is so ingrained in Romanov culture and yet in all my thousands of scans and photo albums, I don't have a single example of an OTMA signature. As best I can tell, the original source for the "OTMA" acronym was Gilliard. He had this to say:

"With the initials of their Christian names they had formed a composite Christian name, Otma, and under this common signature they frequently gave their presents or sent letters written by one of them on behalf of all."

I don't find it hard to believe that the girls might have used their initials as a form of shorthand from time to time. It seemed a fairly common practice in the IF -- the empress's diaries and letters are filled with initials, for example. What I've come to question recently is whether Gilliard overstated things when he claimed that Otma was a "composite Christian name" used by the GDss to refer to themselves as a clump, as opposed to a simple abbreviation.

I have seen a photo of a poem by Petrov dedicated to "O.T.M.A." but even that is clearly an abbreviation rather than the name-like "Otma" of Gilliard's claim. (I'd post a scan, but I can't get one without utterly destroying the paperback book it appears in.) Further, I don't recall ever seeing "OTMA" or "Otma" in any of the IF's diaries or letters. Instead, it's "we," "we four," "the girls," or "the sisters."

Good points, Sarushka. I  had casually wondered about the lack of examples of the "OTMA" signature, but now I  really doubt its existence. There's no way in h.ll  serious Romanov readers such as ourselves and many others on this Forum might simply have missed it. I know I haven't and I've seen a lot.
Gilliard does seem very clear and firm in his statement but other than that single instance, I'm not aware of any other reference to the reality of the "OTMA" acronym. Check that..... I have seen others , but none pre1918 and later ones seem likely to just be passing on that assertion.
As striking perhaps as a lack of the "OTMA" signature is, as you say , its absence from IF diaries and letters. But then, there's no way the girls' mother, father, and brother refer to them as OTMA.
For what it's worth, I think their mother would not have approved OTMA's use of the "OTMA" acronym in correspondence or gift-giving. Too impersonal and smacking of laziness or indifference.
Still, I must say OTMA works perfectly as an acronym. We Forum members would have mighty tired typing fingers without it.

Sarushka, could you please post as to whom the last 2 pics you posted were for? And do you know the date of the last one? Thanks.

They were for the girls' cousin, "Dicky" who later became Edward VIII/Duke of Windsor. The last postcard is dated 1915 just below Olga's signature.

Did Anastasia sign the first one "Anastaska"? In all of the other photos of her signature that I have seen, you can clearly see the I, but here it looks like a K.

Sarushka, could you please post as to whom the last 2 pics you posted were for? And do you know the date of the last one? Thanks.

They were for the girls' cousin, "Dicky" who later became Edward VIII/Duke of Windsor. The last postcard is dated 1915 just below Olga's signature.

Dickie was not Edward VIII. He was their cousin, Lord Louis Mountbatten, the youngest child of Princess Victoria of Battenburg

Sarushka, could you please post as to whom the last 2 pics you posted were for? And do you know the date of the last one? Thanks.

They were for the girls' cousin, "Dicky" who later became Edward VIII/Duke of Windsor. The last postcard is dated 1915 just below Olga's signature.

Dickie was not Edward VIII. He was their cousin, Lord Louis Mountbatten, the youngest child of Princess Victoria of Battenburg

Oh geeze - you're absolutely right! I was thinking of "David." Thanks for spotting my mistake.

You're welcome!

If the girls did use the acronym of OTMA, who would have been the one to write it?  Would they all have written their own individual initial?

And I agree that Alexandra would never have allowed the girls to give gifts under an acronym.  She would have seen it is disrespectful.

But until I read this thread today, I had just accepted the posit that the girls did use the acronym because I had read it in Massie's book and I knew the source to Gillard.  It seems something he would have known.

I have never seen an example of it either.  How about you FA?  Have you ever seen a copy or an original document with OTMA used a signature for the four girls?

And I agree that Alexandra would never have allowed the girls to give gifts under an acronym.  She would have seen it is disrespectful.

I wouldn't be so sure of that. Alexandra's own diaries and letters are loaded with initials and abbreviations. I see no reason to presume she would have found it disrespectful.

["Господь им дал дар по молитвам их размягчать окаменелые наши сердца за их страдания..Мне думается, что если люди будут молиться Царской Cемье, оттают сердца с Божией помощью."]

Did Anastasia sign the first one "Anastaska"? In all of the other photos of her signature that I have seen, you can clearly see the I, but here it looks like a K.

Anastasia was sometimes called Anastaska. It was a nickname.

O,  T,  M  or  A to create "OTMA" was never been used by the Grand Duchessses.

Perhaps convenient for many to use, in reality it is a vulgar invention that was created by a person who was outside the family.

Belochka,

We know that Gillard was quoted in N&A as having said that the girls used the acronym.  Do you know if it was really someone else out side the family?  Who?

I am looking for OTMA's signatures in English, separate from each other. I have Olga's, actually, but haven't found TMA's seperate. Thanks in advance.
P.S. I searched here and could not find anything.

[Mathematic, art and history in ♥]

Thanks a lot! 

[A]

but on the other hand, why should they didn't use it like her mother's AETA signature. this was a poem secret society between Alix of Hesse, Ernie (her brother Ernst Ludwig of Hesse), Toni Becker-Bracht and Alexander von Frankenberg.
I suppose when Olga over take the secret writing of her mother - why not also such a thing like OTMA?