Functional-Semantic Features of German Anthroponyms in Informal Communication

The article examines the functional-semantic features of German anthroponyms in informal communication. Personal names are usually described as purely identifying signs, yet in familiar interaction German names are systematically reshaped — shortened, suffixed with -i, diminutivised with -chen and -lein, replaced by metaphorical endearments and recomposed into compounds — and each modification carries meaning that the full official name does not. The study asks what these modified anthroponyms mean and what they do. It is a qualitative, descriptive-analytical study based on forms documented in German morphological, gender-onomastic and computer-mediated-communication research; no counting, measurement or statistical procedure is applied. Four functional-semantic domains are identified. First, familiarisation: truncation and i-affixation convert an official name into a token of shared everyday space. Second, evaluation: the same devices are semantically ambivalent, expressing tenderness, teasing, coarseness or contempt according to the relationship rather than the form. Third, relational encoding: informal anthroponyms and kinship terms define degrees of closeness and can override the gender otherwise carried by German first names. Fourth, identity construction: in digital environments self-chosen nicknames turn naming into self-presentation. The article concludes that informal German anthroponyms constitute a relational subsystem of the language: their semantics is not lexical but interactional, and their principal referent is the relationship between the speakers.