Nicknames: The monthly topic for December by DMNES

https://dmnes.wordpress.com/2015/12/03/nicknames-the-monthly-topic-for-december/

Welcome to another month! The actual monthly topic for December is nicknames, diminutives, hypocoristics, pet forms, whatever you want to call them. One of their earliest posts on the blog that exploited their then-nascent data collection was on diminutive forms in 16th C England, and this month we would like to build on this. We’ll look at questions such as:

• In what cultures can diminutive forms be found?
• In what time periods can diminutive forms be found?
• How are diminutives formed in different languages?
• Is there any difference between how women’s and men’s diminutives are formed?

There is a pervasive view that the only names that made it into record in the Middle Ages were formal, legal names. One of the goals of this month’s choice of topic is to demonstrate that this is definitely not the case!