[1][2] Through her mother, Anna/Theodora was a granddaughter of Emperor Theodore Komnenos Doukas of Thessalonica (r. 1215–1230, d. after 1253) and Maria Petraliphaina.
[3] Ivan Božilov persuasively identified Anna and Theodora as the same daughter, but his reference to her as "Anna-Theodora" has created the misleading impression that she bore a double name.
They seem to have married Ivan Asen II's daughters by Irene Komnene,[6] but no source provides the names of their respective wives.
[8] Since Božilov adopted this solution, albeit without much conviction,[9] this had become the common assumption in Bulgarian historiography.
[12][13] On the other hand, the wife of Mitso Asen, traditionally identified as Maria but perhaps more likely Anna/Theodora, was the mother of Emperor Ivan Asen III of Bulgaria (r. 1279–1280) and of Maria, the second wife of Emperor George Terter I of Bulgaria (r. 1280–1292), and the ancestress of the Byzantine branch of the Asenid dynasty.