Discourse and conversational analysis methods were used in a qualitative reconstruction of one aspect of the regularities in the way 61 children "do" personal reference. Of particular interest was the development of two reference forms: minimization--preference for simple (one word) forms, or recipient design--reference forms indicating to the listener that he or she knows the person referred to. The children's reference activities were taken from the narratives of the 5-, 7-, and 10-year old subjects in both a formal and an informal situation. The detailed analysis of the conversational data revealed the following aspects of referential activities as different steps in the acquisition of preferences of reference to persons in conversation: (1) children do not use the proper name in reference to a person, although the name is provided by the listener in the conversation; (2) children indicate that they are searching for the name which is not available to them; and (3) children try to elicit the name they do not know from the listener for further use in the discourse. Additional analyses revealed that children as young as 7 had already begun to master the two reference forms. Children aged 10, however, showed a higher degree of sensitivity as to the way in which they applied the two references. (HOD)