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adamzochowski

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

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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.

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).

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