The use of short and affectionate forms of Russian first names allows a speaker to express their current feelings and emotional states towards a person simply through the choice of name form. Given the multitude of information that can be derived from the form of a first name, the question arises about the translatability of these forms into a language like German, where such a derivational principle does not exist. The author examines the use of name derivatives in the works of well-known contemporary Russian authors Viktor Pelevin and Vladimir Sorokin, and based on the translation solutions found by five renowned translators of both authors in dealing with the derivational forms of Russian first names, she derives a classification of possible approaches.