Modern studies of informal names are presented from different angles of observation: semantics, motivation, creation and gender peculiarities of this type of onyms. The issue of characters of the sociocultural environment, in which nicknames appear, and its influence on assignment of a name to a member of a certain collective is also being considered more actively in recent years. School and student nicknames are appearing in linguists’ field of view more and more often. The purpose of our investigation is to find out the motivational features of student nicknames. The object of our study is student nicknames. The subject is motivational features of the lexical base, which formed the basis for the creation of this type of onyms. The main task was to reveal the meaning of noted onyms, to determine the reasons for their appearance and to ascertain the features of the student unofficial onomasticon. The nicknames of students of the philological faculty of Odesa I. I. Mechnikov National University served as material for the article. Student slang reflects on the peculiarities of creating nicknames. The language of students differs from the language of people of other age groups, and this is what determines the specifics of student naming. Individual nicknames of students are grouped into two categories by origin – nicknames of appellative origin nicknames of anthroponymic origin. Nicknames of anthroponymic origin make up the largest part of discovered names. They are motivated by the official names and surnames of bearers. Names, motivated by the features of bearer’s appearance, establish the largest group of onyms of appellative origin. By structure, such onyms are mostly one-component and expressed by nouns. Among the studied student nicknames, onyms with neutral or ameliorative meaning are predominant.

В статье рассматриваются неофициальные именования небольших закрытых коллективов, а именно проанализированы студенческие прозвища, выделены группы по мотивам номинации.

У статті йдеться про неофіційні іменування невеликих закритих колективів, а саме проаналізовано студентські прізвиська, згруповано їх за мотивами номінації.