It's interesting. My closest friends use my last name, while everyone else uses my first name at work. Apparently it was a hangover from the custom at old British public schools that some old Indian schools retained into the 70s/80s. I sort of like it.

Same here, but the reason is simple - there was a bunch of people with the same first name in my class (1st grade). So we all went by our last name. And, as those still are close friends of mine, after all these decades, they (and everyone else I know from that time) use my last name when addressing me. And other people sometimes pick it up and use it too..

I went to a British private school (which we also call "public schools" to annoy Americans) and it was certainly still hanging on there into the 80s.

My brother attended the same school where we briefly overlapped so I was by default "Minter" and when the distinction was needed I was "Minter Minor" and he would have been "Minter Major".

Like many things it doesn't make much sense in retrospect.

Edit: People do still often call me "Mister Minter" where I'd expect them to use my first name, but I think they just like the alliteration. It's not old schoolfriends doing it.

I appreciate that too at my former university in Germany, it's kinda "very modern" and people always use their first names for everything, professors and students alike. But it gets complicated when emailing professors that are only losely related to the uni.

It's quite common, even the norm these days, to address people by their first names in professional settings, among colleagues.

The thing is that this is becoming/has become the norm too when you get correspondance from strangers when the standard etiquette is to use title + surname, as in all European countries, I suppose.

Now, I think when people address you by your surname only orally or in writing is irritating.

Well, I personally find title + surname the worst; it's obnoxious and elitist; my (first) name isn't "engineer". I can live with it, though. I just kinda hate people who demand it of others.

So, clearly, you can't please everybody.

By title I mean "Mister", etc. Perhaps "Engineer" is a German thing ;)

And then you must know (if this is a system: store) the person's preferred gender, and in some cultures marital status.

Not all European countries. We phased the title and surname addressing out during the 70s here in Sweden: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du-reformen

Personally I get annoyed only if a sales person addresses me by first name. There is no other setting where I would prefer a stranger to address me using my full name, unless we’re in some context where there are dozens or hundreds of strangers so one can not expect my name is unique.

Last name address is when things get real. Government and divorse lawyers real. Time to sober up and answer carefully.

Not a good feeling, when people do it. The only thing worse is name + patronymic. That could never be good news.

This is remarkable because from my outsider glimpse German culture puts an emphasis on formality and credentials. If someone has a signature like "Dr. Ing. Prof. Anselm Schultz" am sure not opening my email with "Hi Anselm".

It changed a lot in the last 25 years. But it can depend from place to place. One of my friends has a Master of Engineering and he was a bit surprised when somebody in Austria addressed him with "Oh, Herr Ingenieur!"

Austria is special. Using an academic title is customary, and job titles are still common. Many foreigners think Austria and Germany are similar in terms of culture, but there are notable differences between the two countries that can be traced back to their history. I have an Austrian mother and a German father, so I experienced both cultures.

Mr. Doctor Professor

>I find it super irritating when people address me by my last name.

Me too. There are still German companies where coworkers address others with Herr or Frau followed by their last name.

I find it also interesting how people that learn German understand the difference between the "you" in formal ("sie") and informal ("du") version, but often don't understand in which context du use them. In most cases you can use the informal "du" nowadays, especially when you are out with somebody for a beer.

After elementary school we had this interesting shift form addressing the other children with first name to addressing them with last name. We were circa 11 years old.

It's a generational thing. There has definitely been a change in recent years, especially the younger generation can no longer do much with the formal “Sie”, but of course they know it. I am 46 years old and have grown up with and been familiar with the “Du/Sie” dichotomy from the very beginning. It also has many advantages and offers clear relationships: There is no ambiguity as to which pronouns I use to address someone, older people and superiors always use “Sie”. With younger people/peers of the same age, you can quickly agree on a “Du”. These days, it's unclear to me who I can address as “Du”. I'm a friend of clarifying this before starting, but it's always a meta conversation, which can hinder the flow of conversation. Besides, it's a kind of badge of honor and a sign of trust when you're offered a “Du”. When I address anyone of our management team as “Du” these days, it irritates me - I'm not “best friends” with them, nor do I feel closer or more connected. For me, the distinction is/was never an expression of whether you are on an equal footing or not.

Interesting how you write "Du" and not "du". I'm French and I've been living in Germany for 20 years. I understand and use "du/Sie" more or less appropriately (we have the same dichotomy in French). What I still cannot wrap my head around after all this time is why/when some people use "du/Du", "dein/Dein", "dich/Dich" in writing (to be clear: not at the beginning of a sentence). I guess "Du" is somewhere inbetween "du" und "Sie" on the politeness scala but I never dared to ask. I'm only using lowercase "du". What would be a rule of thumb on how/when to use the uppercase "Du"?

"Du" and "du" are generally 100% equivalent. Regular casing-rules apply, e.g. in the beginning of a sentence it's "Du" but inside it's "du". "Kannst du mir helfen?". "Du kannst dir doch selbst helfen!"

Sometimes it's written "Du" even if in the middle of the sentence when addressing someone directly. It's technically incorrect, but it's used for emphasis and hence politeness, and that's probably where your feeling comes from.

The same can happen with other words that are getting capitalized for similar reasons, but when going strictly by the book it's grammatically incorrect. An example would be "das Große Ganze" where it should be "große" but it is capitalized to emphasize the connection/phrase.

>It's technically incorrect, but it's used for emphasis and hence politeness, and that's probably where your feeling comes from.

That's wrong, it's not technically incorrect. In fact before 2006 the only correct way to address someone personally in written form was to capitalize the Du / Sie / Ihr. Since then you are allowed to write it either way. I still use the capitalized form because I'm old and that's what I learned back in school.

Fair enough.

> Since then you are allowed to write it either way

Okay, my interpretation is that it doesn't really make sense within the language rules, so they changed it but allowed to use the old style to make the transition easier. ;-)

> I still use the capitalized form because I'm old and that's what I learned back in school.

Impossible to keep up with all the Rechtschreibreformen anyways.

Thank you and nosebear for the clarification! Now I understand better why some of my colleagues (like my boss, older) use "Du" and some don't. I'll stick to not using it, there are enough grammatic pitfalls elsewhere in the German language (not that French is any easier for foreigners, I'm sure).

I love and hate German for this; it's a language whose formal pitfalls and vagaries seem almost designed to sort people into highly-refined strata of education.

It must be so cool to see all of them "from the top" (i.e. someone who has been natively-and-highly educated, immersed in the language for their whole life); but it's from the outside it's like a fancy club that you just can't seem to get into :)

It seems sort of like calling other people ma'am and sir in America. Everyone knows what those words mean, but younger people will almost never use them (except in specific American subcultures). Some people may be offended if you call them sir/ma'am.

The YouTube algorithm has seen fit to serve me a bunch of American police bodycam videos lately. I find it super bizarre that a policeman will address everyone as sir. Including some deranged crackhead, without pants, charging at him with a sword. Decidedly not a "sir".

In Denmark nobody adresses each other formally, unless you're royalty. Parliament also does it during debates, but that's pretty much it. It's weird when it happens, and it's usually some store clerk that does it out of a misguided attempt at politeness, but to me at least it has the opposite effect. I am not a Hr. (sir), I'm just some dickhead buying cigarettes at 1 AM.

I Denmark we at least pretend everyone is equal. The CEO of the company is just John. We eat lunch in the same break room at the same time.

US English doesn’t really have an informal version of “sir” for the situation you described. Closest would be “hey” or “yo” etc. but those aren’t even (pro)nouns.

Sounds like a duel with a knight, so "sir" feels appropriate.

More seriously, I think it's possible that "sir" can be used in a way that casts everyone as equals. Like, you can be in a crackhead's den and recognize that he is in important person in that environment.

The way US cops talk is a whole thing. It’s one of the most-distinctive job-related American English variants. Even more so than white-collar “business English” (“let’s take this offline and circle back to it, as per my prior email”)

Some of it’s weird posturing (I’d put the “sir” thing in that category) and a bunch of it’s a combination of actually-effective and folk-supposed-effective ways of speaking to dazzle jurors, plus probably some other motivations and influences thrown in (some Hollywood-military turns of phrase and vocabulary, certainly)

In Spanish the Police/Civil Guard (militarized police) does the same, they will address you like "Disculpe, caballero" - excuse me, (Gentle) Sir. They will address you very formaly, and you might shit bricks on the road in case you messed up something or have a faulty light.

I think it also highly depends on where you're from.

Traditionally in Bavaria you'd have used "Du/Ihr" in shops or on the streets colloquially even decades ago, and yet from time to time you'd ran into people (always from Northern Germany) who seemed very surprised you'd not use "Sie/Ihnen".

Of course I'm overgeneralizing and I think I've had like 2 jobs in my life (since the late 90s) where some people were called Herr/Frau X instead of the just the first name, be it IT or not.

As a born and raised English speaker and fluent Italian speaker, I still don't love the "tu / lei". It's very... binary as to what gets used. Sometimes that's easy, but the marginal cases can be difficult to figure out.

I think the tone and posture when addressing someone convey enough formality. Like if I met Barack Obama, I would be very formal and respectful in my bearing and language, but of course still use 'you'.

In the weird edge cases you can simply err on the side of politeness and use the formal version. Worst case scenario they'll simply tell you to drop it and use tu instead.

From what I understand, it used to be similar here in Sweden, but that change with the du reform in the 60s and 70s, when people started saying "du" to everyone, and "ni" became purely plural (unless you're speaking to royalty).

We also pretty much always use first name, at least everywhere I've been. Would feel weird to call people by their last name.

ever have people at work addressing people by only their first name initial in email?

someone ive never met in person and uses my first name on work calls referring to me as "b" in email. its like the wears-a-bowtie-to-work guy of email.

come across a few of these people and have never noticed a tell they were that type of person outside the text of their email

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 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.

This was absolutely not the norm I experienced in the 2000s.

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.

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.

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.

>Stifler from American Pie

I always assumed it was his first name, thanks for expanding my understanding just a little!

Not just Scully, but essentially everybody from every doctor or police procedural goes by their last name. The shows aren't called Meredith's Anatomy, Gregory, Adrian, or Theo.

It’s mostly a thing among kids heavily into sports, in my experience.

I suspect the equivalent for 90s/00s nerdy types is e-mail addresses.

I am still "squirrel" to some college friends. And think of many of my college friends and co-workers as their username.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Nicknames include variations like Mikey, Mickey, Mikail, Big Michael, Little Michael, Gas Station Michael, Angry Michael, Tony (obligatory wrong name your group uses because there were already too many Michaels and this Michael liked his middle name)

and Mike.

Were your "American" high schools located on some other continent?

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.

In my circle usually people would either go by their middle name or they'd very quickly earn themselves a nickname... although now that I think about it we did use lastnames for some guys. Whatever works, really. Nobody was a stickler about how they were addressed.

The surname thing was extremely common even outside of sports at my high school.

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".

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...

He's anal

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.

is it particularly american to avoid bothering others with my own problems of any kind?

i live in the pnw which is somewhat infamous for its "mind your own business" culture. we have a transplant friend from the midwest who seem less shameful in asking for what amounts to free labor and i wonder if its a regional cultural thing within the US.

if forced by auditors to bother others with my problems, intimacy issues would be near the end of the list.

if this is american, which cultures encourage bothering others with personal problems?

I'm mostly agreeing with anal_reactor, that for most people there are hierarchies of closeness one will probably have with other people. I'm not talking about chatting up intimacy issues with any random neighbor or business contact, I'm talking about close friends and relatives.

Once again, not just out of the blue calling up that cousin you haven't spoken to in a decade and start unloading on them about your emotional issues of the day, but people in your life that truly know the day to day you. And I'm also not saying we should all invite our friends over for some barbecue and then just start sharing every detail of our sex lives. But if we are having problems in the intimate parts of our lives, we should have some people who we can talk to about it. People who understand your deep values, people who understand your goals in life, people who really get you and love you.

I think more people should probably have more deep connections with others. Everyone sees it as "bother others with my problems" and then we wonder why we have such a mental health crisis in this country and have a loneliness epidemic. Almost as if these things are related...nah! Seriously, is there absolutely nobody in your life who you think wouldn't find it a bother to listen to whatever is emotionally unsettling you? That the only way for anyone to help you with a problem would be to pay them? This would seem incredibly distressing to me, to feel like I have no real close community at all.

I'm not saying we shouldn't have paid professionals for mental health resources as well. They absolutely have a place, and I think a lot of Americans don't utilize these services enough for a multitude of reasons. But in the same way you don't go to the ER for a minor cut you shouldn't have to rely on paid therapists for your day to day emotional issues.

As for asking about free labor, once again it really depends on the context of the request and the relationship I have with the person. Once again, hierarchies of relationships. I've absolutely asked friends and neighbors to help work on a project around the house, and I've absolutely been one of those people asked to help and been there. I wouldn't think anything of the ask, and I wouldn't think anything of someone saying no to me asking. It would definitely depend on the context though. A random stranger knocking on my door asking me to redo their whole home's plumbing? Probably not! A neighbor I've talked to a few times asking for a spare set of hands for a minute as they hang something outside? If I have a minute, sure thing, I'll be right there. A close friend needing a hand pulling some ethernet cable throughout their home or work on refinishing their billiard table or painting a room? I'll grab some beers and be there in an hour.

My home is the first house in the neighborhood, so I tend to get a number of people who have minor car trouble break down stop in front. I go out there with a tool bag and a sealed bottle of water ready to help every time I see someone out there. But oh no, what a nut, offering all that free labor to absolute strangers.

> bothering others with personal problems

Ultimately my point is people should have other people in their lives where talking about intimate details and issues in their lives shouldn't be seen as a bother, but as something they would want to help with. And that I think it's a symptom of our society being sick that so many people think helping others, even supposedly close friends and family, with their issues is being bothered.

> Do you frequently tell you mom, dad, brothers, children and in laws about your sex life?

Yes.

Do you find they look at you the same way your CEO did? If not, you apparently have unusually "special" relationships.

Sometimes. Those who don't usually also enjoy hearing me in a much more relaxed tone, whereas those who do end up perceiving me through the lens of much more official language. I still fail to see what's so absurd about this.

Do you... literally talk to your boss the same way you talk to your best friend?

This is a very confusing discussion.

If you live in a Robert Heinlein Stranger in a Strange Land esque sex positive utopia where you're constantly going around talking about sex to everyone and getting positive reception, talk about it with your CEO as well, I guess?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Yeah I have had bosses refer to me by my last name and it's effin irritating. I almost always prefer relaxed, casual attitudes more than frumpy traditionalist for no good reason situations. I understand rare formal occasions but I don't want to put on some mask of formality every day. I consider everyone equal, at least as far as value as a human being. Just treat me with respect, I'm fine with you using my first name.

Tangent:

My father's family is German and all of the males in the family only used their middle name for everything except legal and financial documents. For example, Carl Hans Schmidt (to pick a semi-made-up example) would introduce himself as Hans to everyone he met, and the family would refer to him as Hansi.

I always wondered if that was a German (or regional) tradition, or a fun family quirk.

(The males have all regrettably passed on but I asked my aunts once and they said they had no idea why or how that was a thing, that's just what they did.)

Spanish too. Francisco Javier -> Javi, or maybe Paco (Francisco), but Javi would be the obvious case.

Francisco -> Paco from Saint Francis holding a Pater Comunitatis title in Latin.

But, as a weirder case:

José María -> Chema

Luis María -> Luisma

Juan Manuel -> Juanma

José Manuel -> Chema/Josema

Juan Ramón -> Juanra

María José (women's name) -> Marijose

My personal favourite is Juan Carlos -> Juanca. Sounds great in British English.