Ivan was the seventh child and second surviving son of Nikita Romanovich Zakharyin by his second wife, Princess Evdokiya Alexandrovna Gorbataya-Shuyskaya (d. 4 April 1581).
Ivan had two half-sisters, the daughters of his father by an earlier marriage, and ten full siblings, many of whom died young.
The family was therefore politically influential and very affluent; Nikita Romanov was one of the largest landowners in Russia.
Finally, in 1612-13, Prince Dmitry Pozharsky drove the Poles out of the Kremlin and convened a Grand National Assembly to elect a new Tsar.
As a result, his brother and nephew tended to mistrust Ivan in later years, and he never held any governmental posts under their rule.