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Comment by bloak | Hacker News Reader

I think the problem with Russian names in particular is that a Russian name has three parts (e.g. Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky) and different parts get used in different contexts, depending on who's speaking, level of familiarity and so on. So it's like in an English novel where someone might be referred to as Smith by the narrator but John in dialogue, but with an extra 50%, at least, of confusion.

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There are also the "canonical" nicknames that are not obvious to non-Russian speakers. E.g. Nikolai is Kolja.

With different transliteration that one at least makes sense. Nikolay = Kolya. But one that'll send most non-Russian speakers for a loop is Alexander = Sasha. It's like Richard = Dick, though there there's at least a rule that makes that one make sense (a rhyme with a shortened name so Richard -> Rick -> Dick, William -> Will -> Bill, etc). I wonder why it didn't just end up as Lexa, which would fit the other patterns for Russian names/diminutives.

The "-sha" pattern is relatively consistent: Pavel-Pasha, Mikhail-Misha, Natalya-Natasha, Nikolay-Nikolasha, Alexey-Alyosha, Mariya-Masha, Ilya-Ilyusha.

So, Aleksandr-Aleksasha. The dropping of "Alek" is the only inconsistent part, on par with Agrippina-Agrusha-Grusha.

Interesting, never heard 'Nikolasha' once

> Interesting, never heard 'Nikolasha' once

It's archaic, used in Peter I times. Modern one is Kolya

It is not common. Usually you say Kolya.

Ditto.

Lexa (to be more precise, Lyoha) is a shortened version of Alexey (Aleksei); but if it wasn't reserved for that, Lyoha sounds a bit rude (and a more gentle version akin to Sasha would be Lyosha).

> I wonder why it didn't just end up as Lexa

One of the potential diminuitives for "Aleksandr" is indeed "Lesha", although I think it's more common as a diminuitive for "Aleksei"?

Never heard anyone using "Lesha" for "Aleksandr". It is always "Aleksei".

Because Lexa is short for Alexei, not Alexander!

Sometimes people also confuse Vlad with Vladimir, but it's actually Vladislav. Vladimir would be Vova.

And then we add the diminutives like Kolichka. Though, admittedly, there's much more of a pattern there.

Russian diminutives, making nicknames much harder to track for those not familiar with the culture and language. Vladimir is Vova is Volodya, same person. Then other parts of their full name may have variations depending on use.

I've not read Dostoevsky, but there is a similar issue in Japanese literature. The same person might be referred to in as many as 4 different ways, and on top of that you are supposed to infer who the speaker is by the mode of address (and other context clues like personal pronouns), so dialog tags are seldom used.

I'm bad with names to begin with, so I usually make a chart to keep side characters straight.

The same thing happens in English literature of Dostoevsky's period - upper class characters might be referred to by substantive title (sometimes in two different forms), subsidiary title, courtesy title, surname, first name, job/rank/office, epithet, nickname, or even pet name.

To add confusion, the choice of which to use is usually context-dependent (time period, age, status, situation, relationship between characters) but sometimes the author will switch between, say, title and surname within the same paragraph simply as a matter of style or to avoid repetition.

> So it's like in an English novel where someone might be referred to as Smith by the narrator but John in dialogue, but with an extra 50%, at least, of confusion.

I've been reading Tom Clancy recently, and that's basically the Jack Ryan books. Somehow, "Jack" is actually a nickname for "John".

> Somehow, "Jack" is actually a nickname for "John".

That has never made one iota of sense to me. The whole "Dick" / "Richard" thing makes more sense than "Jack" / "John" to me (and it's nonsensical, too).

Wow, until this moment I didn’t realize that Lloyd Bentsen was talking about John F. Kennedy when he said “senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy” to Dan Quayle! I was born in the mid 80s so it was just a quote I’d heard as a child and never thought of it much but thank you.

It's nonsensical unless we are seeing the "John (projectname)" meme in real life. "John" gets used as a placeholder, it gets Ctrl+F replaced in the final draft but Ctrl+F misses the spot with the formal variation, somebody pretends it was intentional, and now contradicting it is a loss of face so the name sticks. The process has given birth to another accidental John.

According to Wikipedia:

- Jehan (Old French form of "John") -> Jan

- Jan -> Jankin (diminutive)

- Jankin -> Jackin

- Jackin -> Jack

No doubt there are "reasons" for all of them, but it's so far in the past and so far removed from my cultural experience as to be irrelevant and functionally nonsensical.

This does give me a reason to preserve some fact about one of my favorite cats ever in perpetuity (given the similarity of the John / Jack transition to Joe the Cat's life).

A friend's cat (who I knew as Joe the Cat) went from being called "Ivy" to "Joe" over the course of the cat's 15+ year lifetime by way of being called, successively: Ivy --> Jivey --> Jive --> Java --> Joe

Joe was calm and compliant, and arguably "a good kitty" (albeit I only knew him late in his life). My friend once described Joe as being more frantic in his youthful vigor but being "pacified through years of routine and systematic abuse".

No, my friend and his and his family didn't actually abuse Joe the Cat. He was much loved. I get to use the phrase "years of routine and systematic abuse" in my life (as often as possible!) now, though (often referring to my experiences with various pieces of software).

And then some people call him Jack or Johnny

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