About your first name

Yes.

However, for many of us northerners doing so is offensively familiar or otherwise extremely uncomfortable. It really, really irritates me when someone does that, excuses it as being something Southern, but at that moment we are in the northern part of the country by hundreds of miles.

But of course we Yankee northerners should just STFU and submit to someone else’s customs, right?

Don’t tell children to do that in the north. You do them no favors failing to mention customs are different in other places.

When I used to visit the in-laws in Tennessee I followed Southern custom despite my discomfort because I was in the South. I expect Southerners who are in the North to follow our customs. I expect strangers and children to address me as Ms. [Surname] until I say to call me by my first name.

The other place is a medical setting. I want to be addressed as an adult, not a child.