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!

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[–] Tuuktuuk@sopuli.xyz 25 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

The Ukrainian system of names basically functions this way: If your name is Oleh Melnyk and you want to call your newborn child Nastia, what gets written in the documents is Anastasiia. Then, people will call that Nastia this way:

If they have to be very formal, they call her Anastasiia Olehivna (this is the father's first name with a suffix)
If they have to be formal, they call her Anastasiia Melnyk (this is Nastia's family name)
If they have to be somewhat formal, they call her Anastasiia
If they have to be informal, they call her Nastia

Every Anastasiia is always called Nastia by most people around her. And every Nastia has "Anastasiia" as their name in their official documents. Nastia's parents will never* call her Anastasiia. Not even when telling their friends what their newborn's name is. They will say "Look, this is our Nastia!"

The same applies to basically all other names as well. There are lists online for what name corresponds with which nickname and there is no simple pattern that you can reliably use to automatically turn a name's informal form into a formal form of the name or vice versa. For foreign names, -chka is a very common solution. When I lived in Ukraine, I would have ended up being Tuuchka, which is kind of funny because it means a small cute cloudlet, but people found that weird and just had to resort to always using my name as in documents, which made them feel kind of uncomfortable. If they cannot distinguish between whether the form they use is a formal or an informal one, their brain breaks a little.

Oh, and when I call my wife's phone from an unknown number, she answers with "Anastasiia ", but if I give her my phone and she knows she's talking to a friend of mine without knowing precisely whom, her first words in the phone are "Nastia ". And no, her father's name is not Oleh. Nor Melnyk. I just took those names randomly. Melnyk is the most common family name over there.

*) Never, except when they are super angry at her for some seriously bad mischief. Then they shout ANASTASIIA MELNYK, and she knows she in trouble. And if it's "ANASTASIIA OLEHIVNA, come here NOW!" then it means she immediately knows she's been caught after all for having killed her sibling three years ago, or something like that. And similarly, if they want to be just generally stern and not angry (although: almost angry), they can go with just "Anastasiia. Come here. Now."

[–] ALERT@sh.itjust.works 15 points 1 day ago

I am Ukrainian. this is correct.