good examples Marionin.. my name is shortened too..

You are absolutely right on Selahaddin´s name Salah = peace  ed-diyn = religion

Selahaddin or Selahattin  was a great soldier and warrior. But there is still an ongoing debate about his origin whether he was Turk or Arab or Kurd.

 We have so many different ways of doing shortenings in English.

Some make sense: Peter - Pete, David - Dave, Philip - Phil, Diana - Di

But others are more odd: William - Bill, Margaret - Peggy

My name is Marion, and that becomes Mazzer to some of my friends (like Gary is Gazzer)

I like " Mazzer "

 Should I change my nick on this site?

Another thing ; when you shorten turkish male name by using " oş " , not all turkish men would like it as the " oş " makes name so SOFT that Turkish men will get offended by being called that way

Mehmet - Memo [acceptable], Memoş [ it sound soft and not suitable the turkish men´s nature !

 You can if you like, but i will call you "Mazzer " from now on. !

Marion, like me I think most English people who use Turkish Class think you´re just aMAZing with your level of Turkish fluency  and Tunci, your English is superb too! My real name is Robert but in English that´s normally shortened to Bob (but Rob can also be used) so there´s another anomaly.

 I agree with Rob, Mazzer is just A-MAZ[E ]-ING ...!! [ Actually there is a program called "strictly come dancing" and there is a judge in there called Graig or something , I want him to say that word [a-maz-ing] for Mazzer...!! just joking , but seriously her level of Turkish fluency is really superb. And her knowledge in Turkish is astonishing !

Tunci, Aerosmith wrote this song about our amazing Mazza  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGbOL6nCdkY

Great song Rob !! , I am sure our amazing Mazzer will like it  !!