I thought i had read somewhere that a person had different nicknames depending on how close the person talking to them was. Like, one nickname if their mother was speaking to them and another if it were their friend. Also, the abundance of nicknames for Russian names made me curious. Is there truth to that? And how would i know which nickname to call someone if their name were Ekaterina? Thanks so much.

Hello Guys! I LOVE LOVE russian names and recently ran into the Kaloshnikov and totally fell in love with it. Can you russian experts show me how "Kaloshnikov" is written in the Russian alphabet, please? I really appreciate you guys reading this! Thanks!
Note: The name is NOT Kalashnikov, it's Kaloshnikov

Can Russian be written using English characters? I tried learning how to speak/write Russian for a while and the characters were giving me a hard time. I mean I see Russian names and stuff on TV and they are not using those characters. So maybe I could learn it without using them?