- Arabic: take the root consonants (3, sometimes 4), and follow this pattern--first consonant/A/second consonant/second consonant (or 3rd, if 4)/U or O/U/final consonant.
- Barak --> Barruuk, Maryam --> Maryuum
- archaic English: adding '-kin' or rhyming (or both!).
- Robert --> Robin. Rick --> Dick. John --> Jankin --> Hankin --> Hank.
- Australian English: adding '-az' or 'azza' if a prominent central/end R is present; add '-o' or 'ooey' to any other name.
- Caroline --> Caz, Cazza. Daniel --> Danno. Moses --> Moey.
- older French: adding '-ot' for male; '-ette' or '-ine' for female.
- Pierre --> Pierrot. Jeanne --> Jeannette. Amanda --> Amandine.
- even older French: adding '-on'.
- Alice --> Alison.
- Hindi: adding '-u'.
- Anita --> Nitu.
- Italian: adding '-ino', '-etto', or '-ello' for male; '-ina', '-etta', or '-ella' for female.
- Cesar --> Cesarino. Clara --> Claretta. Fiore --> Fiorella.
- Japanese: simply dropping a syllable, and/or adding '-chan' for either sex, or sometimes '-ko' for females.
- Koyomi --> Yomi. Kyou --> Kyou-chan. Usagi --> Usako.
- Russian: adding '-ka', '-sha' or '-ya'.
- Ekaterina --> Katenka. Mikhail --> Misha. Tatiana --> Tanya.
- Scottish: adding '-an', '-agan' or '-aidh' for male; '-ag' for female.
- Angus -->Angaidh. Dubh -->Dubhagan. Bran --> Branan. Anne --> Annag.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
What's in a Nickname?
Modern American English has a pretty regular system for making nicknames (the fancy word is hypocoristics)--take the main phoneme/syllable (or at least a prominent one) and add "ee" or "a", or just leave it as is. Ex: Jackson-->Jack or Jax; Eleanor-->Ella; Madison-->Maddy. Foreign, or even archaic English, nicknames thus can seem pretty strange or unintuitive to modern American ears, but they sure can be fun!
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