Comment by sfifs
5 days ago
Yes. I find addressing people by surname uniquely stupid. Like are you calling the person or the historical clan? It perhaps made sense for medieval lords to address their underlings as if they were interchangeable, in our modern context that has largely done away with royalty, using surnames makes no sense.
It becomes even more interesting when traditionally cultures (like mine) don't use surnames, but modern IT systems stemming from the Anglo Saxon culture force people to arbitrarily assign one of their names as a surname or IT systems generally don't work.
I have a very common first name (Dave) and a very uncommon last name (Pifke, pronounced PIF-key). The majority of my close friends call me by my last name, since there are several other Daves and Davids in our friend group.
My brother's friends do likewise, since his first name is Mike and he runs with a bunch of other Mikes and Michaels.
There's a naming collision when my brother and I hang out together, but since we live in different states, the system usually works.
Similar here. My last name is pretty unusual, but my first name is common, so I generally go by my last name with friends and colleagues. Oddly, I've gotten so used to this that it feels a little bit more formal when someone addresses me by my first name.
To make matters even more complicated, when I do use my first name, I almost always use an abbreviation. The only people that use my full first name are my parents, sister, and (occasionally) my wife, and it's really off-putting to hear it otherwise.
Names are interesting and weird.
There's always first initial partial last. DPif and MPif
Same. I work with a girl with first name Emily last name rhymes with “Wacky”. The latter is so much for fun to say and avoids collisions.
I think American high school kids often refer to and address one another by surname. It was the case when at my son's high school, as I recall at my own, and I think at my wife's. It might have been the case at my father's, and perhaps my wife's parents--I'd have to look at the yearbooks.
My experience is this mostly between men and generally not as common as it used to be.
My dad is called by his surname by some of his high school pals and call some of them by surname when he's around them (but not in reference to them if he's talking to me). Thinking back to my high school days in the late 00's I can only remember athletes being called by their last name. Perhaps because of football or sports that you just have your last name on your jersey. It would be an interesting thing to understand more.
I could be regional too. I'm from the US in the midwest.
This is what we used to do, because in one friend group there would be 3 mikes and 2 steves. At some point, you have to use nicknames or last names.
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a lot of the time its just a nickname. public schools in the US are huge and then when it comes to sports the athletes are visiting other schools. before i knew it id meet 12 new Jakes every year so everyone goes by nicknames or last name
theres an occasional phenomenon in the US, often referenced in sitcoms, where an individuals entire first and last name sticks as their "nickname"
In my high school (Massachusetts, USA), almost all the students went by their last names, or something related to their last names. Ashley Milford was Milf, Samantha St. Paul was Saint Paul, Ryan Leonard was Lenny, Kevin Doo was Kevin Doo, for example. I'm still my surname in my head.
I learned later that we had a reputation for being a jock school though, because we all had to play a sport each semester.
There's also the "when you say Mr. lastname, I turn around and look for my father" type of responses when using someone's last name.
This was absolutely not the norm I experienced in the 2000s.
I did in that timeframe. To be clear, it's not "Mr Surname" but just plain "Surname". I have a lot of friends like that, "Boughter", "Mooney", etc. Not everyone, but particularly if the first name was a common one or they played sports.
I'm actually surprised you're not familiar with the practice. Think Scully from X-Files or Stifler from American Pie.
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I experienced this at an boy's prep high school in the late 90s. It really was alienating to have friends I'd known since kindergarten start to refer to me by my last name out of sheer conformity.
It’s mostly a thing among kids heavily into sports, in my experience.
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Nor I in the 2010's/2020's; I have to assume GP is either significantly older than us, or from a community with a strong cultural bubble that may be clouding their judgement.
Addressing each other by surname is something that occurs principally in the context of sports, but outside of that you'd just address someone by given name. That was the case as regards children addressing each other or teachers addressing students. Students addressing teachers, of course, would address them by Mr/Mrs/Ms. <surname>. There are some oddball cases where teachers insist their students address them by given name, though.
Also, you made me feel old.
It is also used when there's name collision
If there's five people named John in the same class in school or the same team at work, it is not uncommon for all John to go by last name.
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The surname thing was extremely common even outside of sports at my high school.
Were your "American" high schools located on some other continent?
The fact that different cultures evolved such systems independently proves that the general idea does make sense. Case in point: you go to an American company, the CEO says "call me simply John, feel free to chat up whenever you feel like it, we're all family here" and then you go talk to him about sex life problems of your marriage and he just stares at you awkwardly. Having explicit layers of social "closeness" makes things much easier to manage. "We address each other using last names, therefore I won't tell him about sex life of my marriage".
In your example the American CEO said you are family.
Do you frequently tell you mom, dad, brothers, children and in laws about your sex life?
Of course not. Whatever problem the American in this hypothetical is having, name conventions are not likely to help.
This wasn't just "sex life", it was "sex life problems of your marriage". And yes, there's a good chance I'd go to family and close friends if I was having intimacy problems with my spouse (with the approval of my spouse, of course!), assuming I have a close personal relationship with those people.
It's weird to me so many people in America feel they can't talk to anyone but strangers on their internet or paid specialists about their sexual issues. Sex is generally a pretty normal part of life, especially between two married people, and yet everyone feels they can't talk about it at all. It's an unhealthy mindset IMO.
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> Do you frequently tell you mom, dad, brothers, children and in laws about your sex life?
Yes.
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I don't talk to my work relationship only CEO about anything sexual. That's just common sense, and is built into our social mores, no need for some hokey Mr. Blahblah unless he wants to be called that explicitly, and I'm fine with that.
Interesting choice of username, given this comment ;-)
If you address him as anything more than Mr Reactor you'll learn all about what he gets up to...
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