Hello! My apologies if this isn’t the right community but it seemed to be the one with the highest likelihood of finding an answer. If there would be a better comm, please let me know and I’ll move the post there.
The context of my question is that I’m writing some fiction that will almost definitely never see the light of day but, nonetheless, I want to be authentic and culturally respectful, even if I’m the only one who ever reads it. It takes place in the late 21st century so, seems that there should be some solid grounding to be believable.
Some of the characters are of Ukrainian descent and I was wondering if those familiar enough could give me some guidance. I’ve read some places that the -ka suffix may be added to a name to be a diminutive/friendly short name (somewhat like Nick -> Nicky in English). Is this correct? Are there other common ways to modify Ukrainian names?
How about feminizing traditionally masculine names, like Mykyta?
Thank you!
There really isn’t one singular way to derive shortened/informal forms from full names. Some names have multiple possible derivatives, too, and you’d probably need to just figure them out on a case by case basis.
If you want an extra formal way to address someone, you can use first name + patronym, like Ivan Petrovych (Ivan, son of Petro) which is often the default when speaking to elders or superiors. Addressing someone by their last name is rather rare, unless it’s their preferred nickname or if you want to emphasize on it.
As another comment mentioned, there also isn’t really a pattern to masculine/feminine versions of names either. Some names have common versions of both genders (Oleksandr/Oleksandra), for some one gender is more commonly used (for example, masculine Bohdan is more common than feminine Bohdana) and some only have one gender version (like Mykyta that you mentioned).
If you have questions about usage of specific names or name forms, I’d be happy to answer!