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Comment by allendoerfer | Hacker News Reader

Do you use them to make fun of them or just to make the words sound nice?

I think Russian makes heavy use of diminutives, doesn't it? I worked somewhere where two women were called Natalia and Natasha and I am still confused what their actual name were, because Natasha seems to be the diminutive form of Natalia and sometimes Natasha called Natalia "Natasha".

I do not think that there are any German names which are the diminutive of other names.

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I can't think of any German diminutive names but there are cases where the "short form" is distinctly different from the long form as in English "Bob" vs "Robert" or "Dick" vs "Richard".

E.g. "Jupp" is short for "Joseph" and "Kalle" is short for "Karl" (or variants like "Karl-Heinz").

In theory there is -chen or -lein - e.g. Katze -> Kätzchen, Obama -> Obamalein. But I don't think it's used very much practically.

The name Gretchen is a fairly ordinary English name, but it looks like it was originally a German diminutive of Greta/Grete? Which are themselves nicknames for Margarete.

Ha, yes. But I do not know if people were actually named Gretchen in Germany or just Gretas called this way. The name is also not currently given very much (or at all) in Germany, when used there is usually a "Oma"/grandma in front of it.

I guess "Benjamin" -> "Beni", "Daniel" -> "Dani" and so on are diminutives as well. But Gretchen is definitely rare for Germans that are not way past retirement age (might be more common in some regions but still "exotic").

Actually this holds true for many "German" names. East Germany generally has more "English" (and "French") names, e.g. Kevin, Justin, Steve and Jacqueline. Otherwise there seems to be a general trend towards more Nordic names (some jokingly blame it on IKEA: "naming kids after the furniture they were conceived on").

From what I know, it's Gretel. But both the name as well as the -el diminutive form are so long of style that they're practically not used anymore.

I think they have been popular in the generation of (and before) WW2 and Nazi Germany - though I don't know if there is actually a causal chain to the name vanishing.

But it isn't "Bob" to "Robert". You skipped middle step, and one final step.

First names were shortened.

Robert to Rob

Richard to Rich

William to Will

Then the shortened version had first letter replaced to make second diminutive form

Rob to Bob

Rich to Dick

Will to Bill

Finally you have third diminutive form, by adding ending

Bob to Bobby

Dick to Dicky

Bill to Billy

Russians do this to common nouns too. The short forms of the common nouns are less "common" (sorry for the tautology) in every day speech in English. Exceptions like mommy, daddy, granny, breakie, aside, of course.

Kinda like Dutch. I wonder if people from other related languages that don't do this think Russian sounds "cute" because of that (like how Germans often say everything sounds "cute" in Dutch).

Richard to Ric to Dick is mentioned here: http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2012/04/how-dick-cam...

Also says that dick didn't mean cock until a lot later.

I'm not sure what it says about the English language that common given names also refer to genitalia, money, prostitutes' clients and toilets (e.g. dick, willy, john and so on).

Probably nothing, but still pretty awkward as a foreigner. You'd think these names would fall out of style but apparently everybody tries their best to be mature about it.

"Natalia" would be the name she'd use in official documents like a birth certificate or passport.

"Natasha" is a less formal form of "Natalia". It's indeed a diminutive but I wouldn't call it an affectionate diminutive like "Robert -> Billy". If I'm good friends with "Natalia" I'd probably call her "Natasha".

If you drop the last "a", "Natash" sounds more affectionate.

If you are a 5yo and a neighbour girl from a house across the street hit you with a toy shovel in the head you would probably come back running to your mom/dad, "Mom, Dad "Natashka" ("Natka") hit me with a shovel! She's baaaaaaadddd" :-)

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