Another confusing name predicament: diminutive forms.
I find this characteristic both really sweet and really mindboggling. Slavic languages typically have many "sweet" versions of each name, as well as common nicknames. Our equivalent of the nicknames might be Robert-Bob, Rebekah-Bekah. Some of them make sense:
Irina - Ira
Dmitri - Dima
Katarina - Katya
Vladislav - Vlad
Some, however, I just don't get:
Yevghenia - Zhenya
Alexander - Sasha
Daria - Dasha
I don't understand the Alexander - Sasha situation because, well, it doesn't make sense. I don't understand the Daria - Dasha combo because Dasha is hardly shorter than Daria.
A few years ago, I read The Brothers Karamozov by Dostoevsky, having no idea how very much a part of my life the Slavic culture would become. I had a great deal of trouble following the story at times because of all the different names that were used to reference one character. Because of all the diminutive/ sweet forms of a name, one person can easily go by 4 or 5 variations of his or her name. Example: Alexander = Sasha = Sanya = Sashka = Sash = Alex
For almost any name, there's a "sweet" version. Example: Ira = Irachka and Andrei = Andruzh. My name becomes Erinichka or Erinochka.
Seriously, it's confusing.
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2 comments:
there's an Alexandra in my MFA program who goes by Sashka. I didn't get it either, but i do think Sashka is a cute sounding name!
Yes, this is confusing. I don't get the Alexander-Sasha either.
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