Coming from a Russian noble family of Tatar descent,[1][2][3] daughter of Kirill Poluektovich Naryshkin (1623–1691),[4][5] and wife Anna Leontyevna Leontyeva (d. 1706, daughter of Leonty Dimitriyevich Leontyev and spouse Praskovya Ivanovna Rayevskaya who died in 1641), she was brought up in the house of the great Western-leaning boyar Artamon Matveyev.

In March 1669, Tsar Alexis Mikhailovich's first wife, Tsarina Maria Miloslavskaya, died during the birth of what would have been her fourteenth child.

[7] Alexis, supported by the Russian public, although not by the family of Maria, decided to remarry in the hope of producing more potential heirs.

[8] Maria's family made an attempt to halt the marriage by alleging that Matveyev had used magic herbs on Alexis to deceive him regarding Natalya's beauty.

[13] The custom at that time was for the consort of the Tsar to maintain a low-key lifestyle, deferring in all matters to her husband and carrying out work in the household.

[14] Natalya, having been raised in a liberal western-inspired household, resented this and succeeded in gradually attaining more freedoms throughout her time as Tsaritsa, such as being allowed to ride in an open carriage and appearing in church without a veil.

During the revolt of the Streltsy on 15 May 1682, two of her brothers and Matveyev were killed and her biological father Kyril Naryshkin was forced to become a monk in a monastery.