Forms of Address
Although everyone in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus is required to have three names, the full three-name form is virtually never used in direct communication and is generally reserved for documents and public speeches. In the media, the three-name form could be used for highly respected persons (e.g. leaders of the Soviet Union and Russia). In most circumstances, one or two names are usually omitted. Different combinations of names denote varying levels of respect.
The choice of addressing format is closely linked to the choice of second-person pronoun. Russian language distinguishes between informal ty (ты) and formal vy (вы), the latter also being the plural of both forms, used to address a pair or group. (Respectful Vy may be capitalized, while plural vy is not.)
Read more about this topic: Eastern Slavic Naming Customs
Famous quotes containing the words forms of, forms and/or address:
“The terrorist and the policeman both come from the same basket. Revolution, legality—counter-moves in the same game; forms of idleness at bottom identical.”
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)
“Culture’s essential service to a religion is to destroy intellectual idolatry, the recurrent tendency in religion to replace the object of its worship with its present understanding and forms of approach to that object.”
—Northrop Frye (b. 1912)
“Take a red book called TELEPHONE,
size eight by four. There it sits.
My red book, name, address and number.
These are all people that I somehow own.
Yet some of these names are counterfeit.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)