# girl getting called by last name **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 22, 2013, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/girl-getting-called-by-last-name/661645 "2013-06-22T19:10:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Gleena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b3f665/32.png) [@Gleena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gleena)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/girl-getting-called-by-last-name/661645/41 "2013-06-30T11:59:36Z")
> [@kambuckta](#): > > Short answer, it depends. > > My supervisors (and some of my more familiar coworkers now) call me by my surname, or a nickname shortened from that…think something like Richards and Rikko…close enough to my real s/name without divulging personal info on the board! > > I love it! It means that my work colleagues (including my supervisors) consider me highly enough to warrant dropping formalities. To me, giving someone a ‘special’ name at work (unless it’s something like Lazy Bastard, or Bitch Face etc) means that they are comfortable around you and feel a greater degree of personal familiarity. And it’s funnier because I’m the only person at work with my first name…there are _tons_ of Johns and Jennies and Davids, but they don’t get called by their last names (which would alleviate a LOT of confusion). > > It’s like being at school…if you got a nickname you were one of the privileged ones: it was the boring or uber-uptight kids who got stuck with their real names. > > Now that being said, I can imagine some people being upset by this practice. That is why supervisors and coworkers need to be damned sure that they know their colleague well enough to get away with it. In your case, it doesn’t sound like they have tested the waters for long enough, and you would be totally within your rights to have a quiet word with your immediate boss to ask him/her to stop. If that’s the way you want to go of course…me, I’d just lap it up and be grateful that I’m valued in this way. > > Oh, btw, I’m an over-50 mad auld bitch and perhaps too old and jaded to take offense at anything much anymore. Or maybe I AM being denigrated, but too stupid to realise it? > > 😃 That’s ‘Drunken Lazy Bastard’ to the likes of you! 😃 Anyway, I get called by a nickname BASED on my last name. It doesn’t bother me. (Australians, they call me ‘Ned’, which will tell you my last name, I bet.) I have three first names - that is to say, first, middle, last are all common first names and the only thing that irritates me is when people call me by my last name by accident, thinking it’s my first. Happens in e-mail a lot. However, it’s your name and you get to chose what you’re called. If it annoys you, tell someone. ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/girl-getting-called-by-last-name/661645/42 "2013-06-30T12:21:45Z")
> [@GusNSpot](#): > > Hummmmm > > I was in a small company. 35 employes on average. Owner is female, younger than I. > > I had been with the company longer than anyone including the female owner. > > I used nick names or a play on the real name for all employees including the boss. One lady I always called her by the name I thought she should have. > Everyone understood who I was referring to even if she was not in that conservation. **Never was I asked to not do it.** You probably never considered it, but maybe, possibly, you’re a nice, friendly person and that’s why people don’t mind. If the OP’s supervisor isn’t friendly with her, calling her by just her last name would have a different connotation. ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/girl-getting-called-by-last-name/661645/43 "2013-06-30T13:09:07Z")
I answer the work phone with my last name only, or if things are slow, my last name and department “Longbottom” or “Longbottom, Griffindor”. Now my 13 year old son has started doing it. I never realized how tough it made one sound until I called him. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/girl-getting-called-by-last-name/661645/44 "2013-06-30T13:23:07Z")
> [@Jenbo9](#): > > Hey everyone- just curious if anyone out ther gets annoyed with getting called by their last name. And how to correct it..My supervisor at work does this to me all the time and it irritates the crap out of me. Now some of my coworkers are starting to do this as well..Im a 36 year old woman getting called by my last name from someone who is 10 years younger than me…any opinions?? My opinion is they probably like and admire you very much. Anywhere I have worked, this would be considered a compliment; it’s a way of referring to you in an unusual, irreverent and familiar way that is at the same time completely professionally acceptable. The military practice of using last names is actually what makes it endearing, IMHO. In civilian practice it’s reversal of expectation. (I was in the army, so I know what that’s all about.) I personally have referred to coworkers, both male and female, by their last name, and it’s _always_ because I liked them as friends, and so used their last name as an ironic way of showing platonic affection for them. On the occasions I’m called by my last name it’s always meant the same way. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/girl-getting-called-by-last-name/661645.md?page=2)