Diminutivos, hipocorísticos y otras formas de nombrar a los parientes en familias de Santiago de Chile

This article explains the results of an anthropological investigation entitled «Families in Chile: Kinwork and the Generation of Family Constellations», and seeks to tackle one of the specific research goals: to show how kin work affects the naming of relatives. To do so, we use Di Leonardo's definition of kin work «the conception, maintenance, and ritual celebration of cross-household kin ties, including visits, letters, telephone calls, presents, and cards to kin; the organization of holiday gatherings (..)» (1987: 442) to investigate its impact on ways of naming relatives. The method used was in-depth interviews, which allowed us to construct kinship charts for each respondent. We found that the use of diminutives, hypocoristics and other ways of naming express the maintenance of kinship ties that are produced inside families. In turn, these ways of naming are influenced by gender and kinship positions and by the positions that respondents use to identify themselves inside their families.