The aim of the study is to examine the modern everyday use of nicknames. The study is based on two different types of material – questionnaires and interviews. In contrast to previous nicknames-studies in Sweden, this study considers, not only different sorts of nicknames, even though this has been taken into consideration, but the function of the nicknames in everyday communication. The observations are based on the name-bearer’s own estimation of his or her nickname(s). The theoreti- cal framework is a combination of onomastics, sociolinguistic, identity-theoretical, and interactional theories. The results demonstrate that the use of nicknames is an important social act that can be either positive or negative for the nickname-users. Six naming environments have been identified for the nicknames’ occurrence: childhood family, childhood friends, sports context, adulthood friends, partner and other. It appears that nicknames are co-creators of a gender and a youth identity. Three different functions for nicknames have been identified: affective function, relation function and positioning function. Finally, this study argues that there are two dimensions, public–private and exclusive–inclusive, that are useful in describing the use of nicknames. © Linnea Gustafsson 2016