Our names have many derivatives. Someone prefers to be called by his full name, someone by a diminutive, others generally prefer intricate forms that are impossible to guess if you don’t ask. The psychologist explains what to do if you want to establish communication, but you don’t know what form of name the interlocutor prefers.
The art of naming (English name — “name”) in personal communication is of interest to theorists and practitioners of social relationships. Dale Carnegie wrote about this in 1936 in his book How to Win Friends and Influence People. He recommended pleasing the ears of the interlocutor with the sound of vowels and consonants in his own name. Fairly believing that a personal appeal not only caresses the ear, but also builds mutual understanding.
Your name is closer to the body
The ancient tribes used the name as a biometric passport: they put in it a lot of personal data about the characteristics of character and behavior. We, receiving “names” from our parents, suffer from civilizational restrictions in naming. For some reason, options in the style of “Dasha quick legs” and “Petya sees the root” are not accepted with us now. But the longing for such a simple way to designate individuality in a name has remained and is quietly splashing in the backyard of the collective unconscious.
Talking about how someone should be called is possible with old friends and with new acquaintances. It is not for nothing that there are so many forms of the name: full, short, diminutive and affectionate and lengthening warm, or even a surname transformed into a given name.
An unpleasant person in communication uses only the «contraindicated» form of your name. How unfortunate. As if he knows
Among all the diversity, there is one from which it is pleasant in that part of the «I» that is responsible for self-identity. For example, Anastasia can be called Nastasya, Nastya, Stasya, Asya, smiling affectionately in response to the correct variation for her and looking coldly if the interlocutor made a mistake in choosing the modification of the name.
Mistakes in pronunciation
It was noticed that an unpleasant person in communication uses the “contraindicated” form of the name, as luck would have it. This spite can be transformed depending on the situation and the personality of the interlocutor. My parents call me Vita, and in the documents they called me Victoria, it can be said that they contributed to the emergence of communication barriers:
- questions and debate “Why are you Vita and not Vika? Then the full name in the passport should be Vitalina (Vitaly)?”;
- a choice in favor of a form alien to my self-identity. I prefer to respond to Vita or Victoria in formal communication; exploitation of Wiki, even with repeated clarifications about my own preferences;
- use of full name in personal communication due to unwillingness to clarify how it is better to call me. At the same time, I calmly respond to “Vika” to my childhood friends, because our relationship was born before my self-identity made a choice in favor of the letter “T”.
Usually people who have been approached “incorrectly” talk about it. Apologies, clarifying the correct form of someone else’s name, and guessing why the wrong one was chosen in the first place is a great way to build relationships. However, the lack of comments, if you managed to immediately hit not the eyebrow, but the eye, is also very informative. For example, my daughter’s name is Mirra. It is quite difficult to hear two letters «R» in the name. Therefore, many unfamiliar people believe that in the family we call her Mira and Miroslava, respectively, without specifying how things really are.
My husband and I rarely correct unfamiliar people about the correct form. Doctors, educators, and service workers always hear «Mi-r-r-a» to avoid bureaucratic blunders, but social interaction on the playground goes without qualifiers.
«No one but him called her by her name»
In romantic relationships, there are even more nuances. The simple rule “to address a person in exactly the modification in which he introduced himself to you” works at first, but as the relationship develops, the temptation to use suffixes and endings increases. In order to express reverent feelings for the interlocutor, I really want to invent my own special appeal, so that the addressee likes it too.
Do you want an interesting and exciting conversation? Ask its participants which version of their own name is most pleasant or disgusting to them.
It is unlikely that universal advice can be offered here. What petting morphological device should be used in relation to a girl whose name is Iya? Iushechka? Iika? June? So you should listen to your feelings from a person, know in the first person about his preferences and taboos, do not be too lazy to ask openly about your favorite variations of the name. Often called by the name of the interlocutor just like that. At some point in the correspondence or conversation, your special appeal to him will appear by itself.
So, for example, for one friend I became Witta, and for another — Vee by mutual agreement. Do you want an interesting and exciting conversation? Ask its participants which version of their own name is most pleasant or disgusting to them. And why.