Inside Ivanka's Relationship With Ivana

Ivanka Trump looks quite a bit like her mother. Both Ivanka and Ivana Trump are blonde bombshells, but their physical similarities are far from the only thing they have in common. They even share a name. While you might assume that Ivanka's name was merely inspired by her mother's, her legal name is actually Ivana — just like her mom. Ivanka, it turns out, is a nickname for Ivana. In a tweet, Ivanka explained, "In Czech, Ivanka is the baby name for Ivana, like Bobby is to Robert."

As noted by the baby name website Behind the Name, Ivana itself is also a variation of another name. It is a feminine version of the name Ivan, a Slavic name that can ultimately be traced back to the widespread name John. Interestingly, Ivanka is not the only diminutive associated with Ivanka — Ivanka could have also gone by the nicknames Iva or Ivka. 

Ivanka Trump spent a lot of time traveling the world as a young girl. Ivanka wrote in her book The Trump Card: Playing to Win in Work and Life that her mom, Ivana Trump, would often schedule a vacation on a whim, whisking her away to places like France, China, Argentina, and Egypt. "My mother would get excited about some part of the world she'd never seen or experienced, and off we'd go," wrote Ivanka.

Ivanka called the experience of traveling so much with her mother "outrageous" and "wonderful," saying that she enjoyed her "special time alone" with Ivana. In an interview with O, The Oprah Magazine, Ivanka revealed that she even had a special souvenir collection from these mother-daughter trips. Ivanka explained that every time she and her mother traveled somewhere when she was little, she would pick flowers, dry them, cover them in resin, and then make paperweights out of them.

Ivanka Trump has long been a key figure in the Trump family. Before her father embarked on a political career, she worked for the Trump Organization and then later became one of his most trusted advisors when he made it to the White House. Ivanka has played a critical role in her father's endeavors, but her mom thinks that the role she has played in his success is larger than she typically gets credit for.

In her book, Raising Trump, Ivana Trump wrote of just how big of a role Ivanka played in her father's election to the highest office in the United States. According to Ivana, if it hadn't been for her daughter, Donald Trump may very well have lost the election. Ivana believes that voters were won over because of Ivanka and that Ivanka helped endear her father to the public. "Voters looked at her and thought, I like her. I trust her. She loves her father, so he can't be that bad," she wrote.

As proud as Ivana Trump is of daughter Ivanka Trump, she wasn't exactly thrilled to see her daughter give up her career in fashion. While she may want Ivanka to end up in the White House one day, it seems that she doesn't necessarily want her to be a lifelong political operative. In a 2018 interview with Page Six, Ivanka said that she was worried her daughter was being overshadowed in the White House. She added that she would prefer her daughter to focus on her own growing empire, such as her fashion lines.

Ivanka told the outlet that she'd like to see her daughter move back to New York, as "politics is a very dirty business." If Ivanka returns to fashion, however, Ivana pointed out that "she would be her own boss."

Ivana herself gave up the opportunity to play a prominent role in the Trump presidency. When her ex-husband offered her the chance to be the ambassador to the Czech Republic, she turned him down. As she told CBS Sunday Morning, she was simply enjoying her freedom and traveling too much to take on the responsibility. "I have a perfect life," she said. 

Ivanka Trump takes after her mother in more ways than one. Like Ivana Trump, Ivanka has enjoyed a successful modeling career. As noted by Biography, Ivana modeled in the 1970s, and it was her modeling career that brought her to the United States, where she eventually married Donald Trump.

Ivanka began modeling while she was still in high school, telling Marie Claire that she did so in order to make money and to escape the rigors of "the prison of boarding-school life." While Ivanka did quite well for herself as a model, landing on the cover of Seventeen in 1997, she never wanted to make a full-time career out of modeling. "I didn't particularly enjoy the act of it," she admitted. Ivanka added that the modeling world is "ruthless," although she enjoyed that it gave her "an excuse to travel" as well as "a way to break up the monotony."

Even though Ivanka Trump was primarily raised by her mother, Ivana Trump, she claims that she is close to both her mother and her father. While divorce can be hard on children, especially when one parent has sole custody as Ivana did, Ivanka said that her parents splitting up actually helped her bond with both of them.

The divorce was a brutal one, but Ivanka told People that her parents "did a remarkable job protecting" the children from the media frenzy that followed. She explained that, for a while, the children weren't allowed to watch television without a parent, and newspapers were also kept out of the house.

Ivanka said that the experience made her "closer with both... parents," explaining that she was at the age "where you do take your parents for granted" and that she stopped doing so after that.

Ivana Trump wrote in Raising Trump that it was clear from the beginning that Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner truly cared for each other. There was just one problem, though: Kushner was Jewish, while Ivanka was raised Catholic. The religious differences led to them breaking up for a year, as Kushner's family wouldn't let Ivanka marry him.

Ivanka eventually converted to Judaism to marry Kushner, with her mother's full support. "I don't care about religion," Ivana told her daughter, encouraging her to convert if she truly loved Kushner. Ivana wrote that her daughter and Kushner "are incredibly happy," which is all that really matters to her. 

While she is supportive of her daughter's religion, Ivana admitted that she's "not convinced about some of the Orthodox customs" Ivanka and the Kushners follow. Then again, she told herself that if her daughter "was willing to give up lobster and bacon." it means that "she must really love him."

Ivanka Trump has excelled in several fields and balances a busy career with a thriving family life. While having it all may often seem like an unattainable aspiration, Ivanka Trump credits her mother with showing her how to achieve all of her dreams. She wrote in Women Who Work that, as a child, she was inspired watching Ivana Trump at work as she oversaw the renovation of the Plaza Hotel.

Ivanka described her mother as being "unapologetically feminine in a male industry," saying that Ivana's example "first embodied and defined" what it means "to be a multidimensional woman." Ivana, like her mother, grew up to "work at all aspects of her life." Ivanka wrote that, from her mother, she learned "to define success on my own terms, to set my own priorities, and to be true to my values."

Ivana set quite the example for her daughter, and she made having it all seem effortless. It wasn't until Ivanka had her own family and career that she realized balancing everything isn't as easy as her mother had made it look.