This custom has been disappearing for decades, at least up here in Canada. I’m in my mid 50s and I almost always referred to parents of friends as well as adult friends of our family by their first name. The one point of confusion was a family friend who was also an occasional supply teacher at my school, where of course I referred to her as Mrs. Lastname.
I’ve never introduced myself to friends of my kids as anything but first name.
The only time I have a problem with this is when they refer to themselves by an honourific but I’m just Firstname.
A surprising number of younger people are actually on board with the Title + Surname format in this area. Adults usually ask if I’d prefer their children refer to me as Ms. Firstname or Ms. Surname.
My surname is as much my name as my first name. I don’t know why you find that concept alien.
I find the “Southern custom” to be offensive.
^ Very much this.
I am happy that the medical providers in this area default to Title + Surname. It is demeaning if I have to address doctors and nurses by their surname but they call me by my first name. That’s infantalizing.
But that’s my point, and explicitly counter to your point. I agree completely - your surname is as much your name as your first name, and your first name is as much your name as your surname, and therefore both may be used to address you interchangeably. You are the one claiming that they are different - so different in fact that you find the use of your first name “demeaning”, “offensive”, and “infantilizing”. That is the thing that I find alien.
Ok, but who said you had to follow it? I certainly didn’t. In fact, I don’t demand honorifics at all, I’m not so fragile that I need children to genuflect in my glory.
Most of the time, people address me by my first name and it does not bother me. But, that is after I give them permission to do so, usually by telling them my name. A stranger who happens to know my first name is not someone whom I have granted permission to address me by it and should try to be a little more courteous.
Again - I have experienced far more often than I care to people doing the “Miss Firstname” thing and then when I politely ask them to address me as Ms. Lastname they say “Oh, we do it Miss Firstname down south.” Well, honey (another irritant from “down south”) you aren’t in the south.
Yeah, that’s another one - don’t call me “hon” or “sweetie” or anything like that. I’m not your wife or your child.
I’ll respect the custom when I’m in the south but I don’t want it imposed on me in my home area.
No, they are NOT interchangeable. One is more formal and often more respectful. Insisting on calling me by one when I prefer the other is offensive, just as called someone by a nickname or diminutive when they prefer their full first name is offensive. Is it the worst thing ever? No, it’s not, but that doesn’t make it OK.
I’m not the one being addressed, but I also find it demeaning and infantilizing. The only reason I don’t find it offensive is that the people so addressing me are usually just ignorant, and don’t understand the problem, like you.
In the culture where I was raised (America, 1970s, but I gather sort of old-fashioned), only children were addressed by their first name. Everybody else had some sort of intermediate step: you progressed quite quickly to a first-name basis with people, but you did have to start out more formally. Because of that, being addressed by my first name by strangers either feels as if they are addressing me as a child, or as if they’re presuming unwarranted intimacy. I don’t like it.
Why is this difficult to understand? You may not behave this way in your culture, but it’s not a difficult concept. It’s more or less the same reason some people don’t uncover their hair in public, or show their knees, or whatever. Not everybody enjoys treating strangers with the same level of informality we reserve for closer friends.
Who here said to call you “hon”? Who are you raging at? Can you quote what I said that merits this tirade?
It used to really bug me when someone would read my name off the receipt and say “Thanks my first name”. I didn’t tell you my name! Your system looked up my name from my credit card and printed it on the receipt without asking me. Why do you think its ok to read this financial document and use my name ?
I guess it says a lot about much tolerance we’ve built up to companies stealing our data that it doesn’t bother me much anymore 
You implied they were equivalent - otherwise I have no idea what your first reply to me was supposed to mean. One name is as much your name as your other name, like you said. And they are equivalent to almost everyone. I’ll call you Mr/Mrs lastname if you ask, but if you are upset that I start with your first name I’m going to A) think you’re a very dramatic person and B) assume that you are extremely old-fashioned.
I understand the problem just fine - the problem is you expect cultural values and speech to remain the way they were when you were a child 50 years ago, and you consider people who don’t hold to this outmoded convention ignorant. We’re not ignorant, we understand that that used to be the way things were done, but the idea of always referring to people as Mr./Mrs. lastname is as outdated as the idea of women not wearing pants, and as alien to current cultural expectations. I’ll do it if you ask, but it is absolutely not the default, and if you are upset when people default to your first name I will wonder where you’ve been for at least the last 30 years, if not the last 60 years.
A cold caller like the OP described should definitely have started out being more respectful. Yes, most people wind up being on a first-name basis with practically everyone, but if you’re trying to make a sale, you toady a bit.
The only thing that would have been better would have been “Oh yes. Your name please? Thanks! And what agency? Terrific, good to know. I’ll be listing the house for sale at some point and will absolutely NEVER USE EITHER YOU OR YOUR AGENCY”.
Or…don’t pick up the phone…
Sorry to be an old coot but I have found a lot of Young People These Days are weirdly specific about names. It may be due to respectfulness and desire not to offend, which is great, but they don’t seem to make the connection sometimes that Steve = Steven, if Steve himself is using the names that way. IOW they need to lighten up.*
I had a phone interaction with a salesman named Fraser. He told me to come into the store and ask for him, which I did. The young lady said “Fraser Rodriquez?” with a very skeptical raised eyebrow. I said, is there more than one? Of course there wasn’t, but she wasn’t going to let me get by with just a first name, for some reason. She made me jump through that tiny hoop, but I can’t quite figure out why. It’s as if she was offended by my familiarity, just breezing in and asking for “Fraser” like I shouldn’t be on a first-name basis with him yet.
*I swear to God, I am NOT going around calling people “Mike” when they told me their name was Michael. I’m respectful too.
My legal first name is widely considered to be a female name. When I say widely, I’ve never met another guy with the same first name but several women.
I’m better about it now being misgendered, and finally at around 60 years old people generally have stopped making passive aggressive jokes about me having a girls name. And it made me a lot more empathetic when my kids chose new names and would would lament “Dad, you just don’t know what it’s like to be misgendered based on your name.”
But I digress.
One good thing about it is if someone calls or writes to Ms. xxx, I instantly know they have no idea who I am. And I usually fuck with them at that stage. “this is she” in my manly voice, etc.
I have to call people as part of my job. I hate it, hate it, hate it, but I gotta. At least it not cold calling or sales. I use government funds to purchase equipment to help aging clients stay in their own homes, like bath seats or grab bars. Before I pay a vendor, I have to confirm the client actually received the item.
Anyway, if someone actuality answers the phone I’ll introduce myself with my first name and ask for them by their first name. (Our system does have a “preferred name” field, which is helpful.) We use first names to keep people from feeling like nameless numbers in a system. Plus many clients live with family, so using last names can be confusing.
For me personally? My real first name is a common two-syllable male name that’s frequently shortened to just the first syllable. So frequently that people will ask, unprompted, which I prefer. I used to say I’m fine with either.
Starting about five years ago, I decided to stick with the full version professionally and only use the short version with friends and family. I like this division, but it has caused confusion when my wife has interacted with my co-workers.
I guess I’m old-fashioned enough to prefer a little more Mr. Lastname from strangers and service people. I’m not to fussy about it, though.
I don’t think it will ever not feel weird when my son’s friends call me by my first name. I really want to say, “Call me ‘Mr. Gnu,’ kid,” but I need to pick my battles.
Or maybe it’s a statement of “I hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal - so I’m not going to address you as ‘Master’ or ‘Mistress’. What, you think you’re better than me?”
No one here did that - I’m talking about real life. Where did you get the idea I was ranting against someone here?
Trust me, if someone had said something to offend me in this thread I would have addressed that person directly.
So… in this day and age when we’re supposed to called people by their preferred pronouns and their preferred name I’m not supposed to choose to be called by my surname? Yes, I am old enough to be “old fashioned” now. I understand that the world is different than 50 years ago and that people are going to try to insist I be addressed in a manner I do not like. However, explain to me why YOU are so resistant to addressing an old lady in manner she prefers? Would you call someone who says “please use they/them pronouns for me” to be “dramatic”? Would you tell that that’s not how things are done?
[PA announcement at big airport:]
"Attention, please. There is an urgent message for… John…
“Will a … John… please pick up the white courtesy phone for an urgent message.”
I am not resistant to calling people their preferred mode of address. Please note that I said “if you are upset that I start with your first name”, not just if you ask me to use your last name at all. A polite “Could you please call me Mr/Mrs lastname” would not make me think you are dramatic, although I will think you’re old-fashioned. This is also generally true for pronouns - I have never had someone get upset at me for using the incorrect pronouns the first time I met them, it’s just a quick “Oh, actually, I prefer they/them”, and we move on.
To be fair, I’m probably projecting too much from a number of very unpleasant retail experiences, where the…well more of a demand than a request, was inevitably delivered in the most condescending, contemptuous way possible.