The ruling on diminutivizing certain names such as 'Abd Allah and 'Abd al-Rahman

Question: We often hear from both the uneducated and the educated the diminutivization of names that denote worship, or their alteration into names that contradict the original name. Is there any harm in this? This includes changing 'Abd Allah to "Ubayd," "Ubbud," or "al-'Abdi" (with a kasrah on the 'ayn and a sukun on the ba'), changing 'Abd al-Rahman to "Dahim" (with or without the shaddah), changing 'Abd al-'Aziz to "Aziz," "'Azuz," or "al-'Aziz," and the like. Similarly, changing Muhammad to "Mahmid," "Hamda," or "al-Hamdi," and the like.

Answer: There is no harm in using diminutives for names that denote worship or others, and I am not aware of any scholar who has prohibited it. It is common in hadiths and athar, such as Anis, Hamid, and Ubayd, and the like. However, if this is done to someone who dislikes it, the more apparent ruling is that it is forbidden, because in that case it falls under the category of insulting one another with nicknames, which Allah has prohibited in His Noble Book. This is unless the person is not known by any other name, in which case there is no harm, as the imams of hadith have explicitly stated regarding narrators, such as al-A'mash, al-A'raj, and the like.