Affectionate endings to guys' names in Polish...

Is there a way that these work?

For example what's the difference when someone calls me "Krzysiu" (My English name is Chris) what's the difference between that and "krzysiek" I'm curious because someone told me the difference is ironic and neglected to tell me the difference.

Help and discuss.

:)

good question...
Potential for confusion with vocative case? (when calling someone)
e.g. Marku is the vocative form of Marek

Krzysiu is like a diminutive of Krzysztof, it's not formal and it sounds more warmly.
Krzysiek hmm actually it is difficult to explain!! :P Krzysiek is more opposite to Krzysiu, its use between friends. Krzysiu - a girlfriend/girl friend or your mum may use it. Well in general women hehe

it's really hard to say, Krzysiek seems more "normal" or regular dimunitive (just like Jarosław>Jarek, Zbigniew>Zbyszek), but unfortunally it has something unattainable to it that makes it (unlike Jarek, Zbyszek etc.) a little odd, that's why many people (including me) don't like the sound of "Krzysiek", so they prefer to use "Krzysiu" instead (it's indeed a Vocative form of "Krzysio", but such diminutives are often used in colloquial, spoken language in Vocative case with the function of the Nominative).

And I agree with tulipan:



Krzysiu sounds much more childish (it's totally OK to call kids with this form) and tough guys won't say it, they don't want to sound like they were displaying too much affection, in my life I've had a very few male friends/family members that were using "Krzysiu" while among women, even just friends (not girlfriends), it's much more popular.

Thank for the info so far.

What happens with Chrisem? or on that note Chrisa? :S I know the spelling is not Polish but still...

:)

Krzysiem.
To make things even easier than they already are there is one more quite popular version: Krzyś.

Krzysiem, Krzysia, Krzysiowi.

And I would say everything is totaly dependable of the person being addressed. There is no general rule, even the toughest guy can still be called Krzysiu.

One can also say Krzyśku in the vocative. In may cases nowadays it seems the nominative is repalcing the vocative. Do you native speakers of Polish (and I submit to your superior linguistic sense) find this more hip, casual, street-wise, with it, cutting edge or trendy,or what?

Russian has completely lost the vocative, as I beleive have other Slavonic tongues. Anyone know which? How about Serbo-Croatian? BTW are there any differences between Serbian and Croation other than the Cyrillic/Latin difference?

Krzysiulku, Krzysieczku...
;)

:D

Krzychu
Krzysztofku
Krzyniu
Krzysiuniu
etc... :D

And what makes you decide to call this Krzystof one of these other names?

We are getting off topic here...

I did not want a "Look at all these ways to say Krzys.... in Polish thread" I'm looking at why and what the different endings mean.

:)

check out the cases ;)

I tried...it's late here...my head hurts....I'll look tomorrow...

Thanks though.

;)

The difference is strictly one's emotional attitude, the degree of affection or the particular spin one wants to produce at a givern moment.
Krzysiuleczku or Krzysienieczku would be super-hypocoristic forms (ultra-diminutives) perhaps likk "my itsy-bitsy Chrsissy boy". Krzychu is actually an augmentative (the opposite of a diminutive) -- something that makes things sound bigger and rougher than the standard form, maybe something like: Hey Chris guy or Big Chris!

I know that these are the roughest of approximations. It would probably take years of learning Polish and interacting with Poles to get a good feel for all the variants of all the common Chrisitian names.

btw, augmentative names/nouns in the function of regular names/nouns are quite popular in Poznań (Wielkopolska region), they tend to say for example Krzychu, córa (for "córka" - daughter) etc.