Re: OFF: Name for a cat

John Cowan wrote:

> My cat is named Max, just Max, but he is sometimes called Maxo, Maxie,
> or Maximilian (which in my dialect sounds like "Max a million" and is
> present as a subtext).
My mother calls our female cat Phoebe "Phoeb'" sometimes. I wonder
if there is any rule for _deletion_ of /i/s to derive intimate forms --
rather
than the reverse...