Examples of nouns in vocative case in usage

Question

I know that there is a remnant of the vocative case in Russian (concerning mainly religious words), which is not often mentioned in textbooks.

So far I know the religious vocatives "Боже!", "Иисусе!". Among casual names, I know "Кать!" and "Саш!".

Are there any other names with a vocative ending?

Answer 1

As for old vocatives, there are also Иисусе (more often господи Иисусе) and врачу, исцелися сам are used. As for the the last idiom, many Russians don't understand that врачу is an old vocative, instead interpreting it as a dative case.

As for the new vocatives, they are created from virtually any name which ends by -a or -я (Саш, Дим, Зин, Вась, Петь, Тань, Насть...), and also there are пап, мам, баб, тёть, дядь.

Answer 2

Кать! and Саш! (sic, no soft mark) are the so-called new vocative, which is has no relation to the original Slavic one. And, outside of names, you also have it in мам!, пап!, дядь!, and тёть!

Господи is an old vocative. Старче (from старец) is an old vocative that's barely ever used, but widely known thanks to Pushkin's Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish.

Answer 3

I believe that one of answers already given should be accepted, since all of them are succinct, complete and correct. Still, I want to mention a couple of other examples, so, there's a word владыко which is vocative of "владыка". It's used to address higher ranks church officials, so domain of usage is pretty tiny. In fact, in Russian is extinct to that level that de-facto "владыко" is treated quite often as a word of it's own.

The same happened with, for example, человече, which used to be vocative for человек. Sometimes (again, very rarely) it's used to make speech sound archaic, most likely in ironical way:

Все, что вдохновляет господ поэтов, было рассыпано вокруг него щедрою рукою в огромном количестве и, казалось, говорило и пело: "На, бери, человече! Наслаждайся, пока еще не явилась осень!"

Here the author (Anton Pavlovich Chekhov actually) uses человече correctly, as a vocative.

And here modern author is using (just to sound a bit more pathetic) it incorrectly, as a nominative:

Когда звучит это фраза на всех языках мира, становится ясно - человече её изрек после тяжелого испытания.

Other form worth to mention is друже (from друг), like in phrase "И как же нам, друже, Совесть заставить улечься?".

To conclude, one thing you should know about any old-form vocative usage in Russian - all such words are rare and extremely bookish. Not even everyone will recognize what you are saying if you'll actually use them.

Answer 4

Not exactly names

From slang there's the fringe чУви (from чувак - dude)

Then братИш, братЮнь (from братиш(к)а and братюня respectively - bro/bruh)

ПарнИш (from парниша - bloke/lad)

ДевУль (from девуля - girl/gal)

СынУль (from сынуля - sonny)

all formed by the pattern of the new vocative

Exclusively for сын and дочь there're in use such vocative forms as сЫна and дОча, whose paradigm is opposite to the new vocative.

Dialectical new vocative for personal names can even have double consonant final as was famously showcased in the classic Soviet comedy movie "Love and doves" (Любовь и голуби)

Людк, а Людк? (from Людка)