Moving to a Western country and having a Polish name with a fixed diminutive effectively means having two different names, each one used with different crowds. Work colleagues know me by my full name, everyone else by the diminutive. A friend of mine who is seeking naturalization pondered simply assuming the diminutive as her official name for simplicity, because it's how she introduces herself to everyone.<p>In my home country people have the diminutives encoded and they know to switch when we are in an informal context. Full names are rarely used in speech if one's name has a diminutive - if you don't know someone it's more likely that you will only use Mr/Mrs + their last name, otherwise you address them with a diminutive. A curious intermediate form of address is found in superiors at work and people who met as older adults - Mr/Mrs + first name, which then can be a diminutive or not depending on personal preference.
<p><pre><code> I think that the most common Russian male name is Sasha (Alexandr)…
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What is the relationship between the two names? I've known multiple people named Alex, but never met a Sasha in person. Is Alex/Alexander a nickname for Sasha, like Chuy is for Jesús, in Mexico?