I don't entirely agree. According to the glossary of this site, a diminutive is a short, affectionate form of a name. A nickname is " a substitute for a person's real name...more familiar, more descriptive, or shorter than the person's real name".
Those sound basically the same to me. Unless you're talking about nicknames like Shorty or
Rusty, which were not what I was referring to.
If there's some kind of hidden difference I would love to know about it.
Edited because I can't spell.
This message was edited 9/7/2008, 8:41 PM