# Call me Seltzer: Anyone go by their last name alone?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-me-seltzer-anyone-go-by-their-last-name-alone/431569
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [December 29, 2007, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-me-seltzer-anyone-go-by-their-last-name-alone/431569 "2007-12-29T05:24:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Draknek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Draknek)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2007, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-me-seltzer-anyone-go-by-their-last-name-alone/431569/21 "2007-12-29T17:53:18Z")
When I was in high school, I knew at least three or four people known by their surname; I think because there were other people with their first name.
I’m still close friends with one of them - apparently it was very weird to go to university and suddenly be known as Paul instead.
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### Author:  [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2007, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-me-seltzer-anyone-go-by-their-last-name-alone/431569/22 "2007-12-29T18:02:22Z")
I had an uncle by marriage whose first name was the same as my dad’s, and everyone called him by his last name. Possibly even my aunt did. Maybe people always called him that, I don’t know.
The guy I dated in high school called several people by their last names, and it got to be common. Usually these people were named Jennifer, so it was an easy way to tell them apart, but it was also just random.
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### Author:  [@Pixilated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pixilated)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2007, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-me-seltzer-anyone-go-by-their-last-name-alone/431569/23 "2007-12-29T18:11:16Z")
Most of my gaming friends know me by my last name only… actually, I wouldnt doubt it if they thought my last name was my first name. I’ll have to ask them when I see them at tonights game.
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### Author:  [@nclpckl22](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nclpckl22)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2007, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-me-seltzer-anyone-go-by-their-last-name-alone/431569/24 "2007-12-29T19:48:32Z")
My last name has always been a source of jokes, but one of my co-workers came up with a nickname for it and I have been blessed with colleagues calling me Fishtown for the last year… had a caseworker ask me once if that was my real name…
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2007, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-me-seltzer-anyone-go-by-their-last-name-alone/431569/25 "2007-12-30T05:44:29Z")
Abraham Lincoln preferred to be called solely by his last name by his close friends and political inner circle. He disliked “Abe,” from what I’ve read, and his wife and kids all called him “Father.” Otherwise he was “Mr. Lincoln” or, later, “Mr. President” to everyone.
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### Author:  [@Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bambi_Hassenpfeffer)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2007, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-me-seltzer-anyone-go-by-their-last-name-alone/431569/26 "2007-12-30T07:33:30Z")
I often go by my last name. When people first meet me, I introduce myself with my given name, but as they work their ways into my inner circle, they tend to start using my surname as my first. I’m fine with it.
My brother is the same way, and whenever we’re together with my friends and his, we have to see which person said the name to know which one they’re referring to.
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### Author:  [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2007, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-me-seltzer-anyone-go-by-their-last-name-alone/431569/27 "2007-12-30T10:41:53Z")
In recent years I’ve been living on the road more than in my home town. Since my brothers (both younger) do live in town and people here get very irritated when they “can’t place you,” I’ve learned to introduce myself as “the sister of the Lastname brothers” (no, my lastname isn’t Lastname). Works just fine, I’m she-Lastname and they’re both Lastname, except when someone needs to differentiate which one they’re talking about and then they become foreman-Lastname and finance-Lastname…
(to complicate things, our full lastname is actually Lastname de Something, but we’re usually known by only the first word… which happens to be a common lastname… but there are no other pairs of brothers in town with it)
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### Author:  [@bubble\_pop\_electric](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bubble_pop_electric)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2007, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-me-seltzer-anyone-go-by-their-last-name-alone/431569/28 "2007-12-31T00:38:12Z")
My teachers always call me by my last name. Not sure why. I’m a girl.
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### Author:  [@Captain\_Socks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Socks)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2007, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-me-seltzer-anyone-go-by-their-last-name-alone/431569/29 "2007-12-31T00:47:05Z")
I’m a dude, people call me Morris. Or sometimes, Morrish.
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### Author:  [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2007, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-me-seltzer-anyone-go-by-their-last-name-alone/431569/30 "2007-12-31T01:44:49Z")
And don’t call me surely.
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### Author:  [@Leiko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leiko)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2007, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-me-seltzer-anyone-go-by-their-last-name-alone/431569/31 "2007-12-31T05:08:07Z")
Unless my best friend’s brother is in the same room, I call her by her last name- several other people do as well. But just as many people use her first name.
On the other hand, no one refers to me by my last name- anymore. I had the same science teacher for three consecutive years of high school and he always used the German pronunciation of my last name- which is not how my family says it- to address me.
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### Author:  [@enigm4tic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enigm4tic)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2007, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-me-seltzer-anyone-go-by-their-last-name-alone/431569/32 "2007-12-31T05:28:07Z")
Although I don’t go by it exclusively, there is a subset of my friends who almost exclusively call me by my last name. Among the fraternity brothers there are also people who go almost exclusively by last name, to the point where sometimes people forget its not the guy’s first name.
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### Author:  [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2007, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-me-seltzer-anyone-go-by-their-last-name-alone/431569/33 "2007-12-31T05:55:16Z")
In my law school (and maybe others; I don’t know), all of the professors referred to all of the students as “Mr. Smith,” “Ms. Jones,” etc. So that’s how my law-school colleagues and I got to know each other, and that’s how we all still call each other, both in third person and face-to-face.
The exception is the one guy whose last name is – no kidding – “Lawyer.” We all call him by his first name, because “lawyer” applies to all of us now. (We call each other “counsel” sometimes as a joke, but that will probably stop when the newness wears off.)
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### Author:  [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2007, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/call-me-seltzer-anyone-go-by-their-last-name-alone/431569/34 "2007-12-31T11:35:09Z")
[QUOTE=FairyChatMom]
Related to that, but only tangentially related to the OP, I’ve met way too many pilots who use their callsigns in real life.
[/QUOTE]
Seriously? I thought that was strictly a _Top Gun_ thing. Man, just when you think you can trust Hollywood never to tell the truth, it flipflops on you.
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