Oh, and I meant to say, I’m almost never called by my last name, though Mr. Cameron is, except by his parents and siblings. Heck, even I usually call him by his last name–but that’s how he was introduced to me when we first met.
Tricky concept here…I am usually called by the first half of my last name. That’s it. The very first syllable, which actually happens to be my username as well. I have a fine first name, I don’t mind it, but for some reason, it happens that men in my family are always, and I mean ALWAYS, called bouv. It started with my dad, he was bouv in HS, and again in college. It’s not like anyone at college knew he was called bouv, it was just the ‘right’ thing to call him. Same thing happened with my brother, and then with me. I actually asked people in college why they called me bouv, and they admitted they got it from someone else calling me that, yet no one claims being the first, nor why bouv was choosen (well, I mean, obviously because it;s in my name, but you don’t call Johnson John, do you?)
Obviously I don’t mind, I actually like it a lot. After all, I am, The Bouv around here. A few people are actually dedicated to making me a media mogul, purely based on the fact that I am The Bouv.
An interesting problem arose in high school when both my brother and myself where there for one year. Both of us were bouv…so, naturally, for a year he was big bouv and I was little bouv.
As far as my whole last name goes, I don’t if people call me it, however, I’m weird about the pronounciation. My full last name is Bouvier. Anyone who knows French would say “boo-ve-a” with both thee ‘e’ and ‘a’ being long vowels (yes, like Marge in The Simpsons (the number of times I get that reference I can’t even begin to count.)) However, my familiy chose a while ago that we are in America, are Americans, and will procounce it as such. So, we pronounce it “boo-ve-er”. So you can call me by my last name, buy make sure to pronounce it the way I like.
given the number of mispronounciations i’ve heard of my last name, if someone could do it right, i’d have no trouble with it. i work with a lot of younger people, and they call me Mr. (firstname)…a few call me Mr. (lastname). no big deal.
anyway, i don’t care either way in most situations. as always, familiarity dictates the level of formality involved. to me, last names are formal names.
How about them apples? The first half of my last name sounds like “niz” but in fact starts with a silent K. So if you are pronouncing (mentally) my user name as “kah niz” 
[sup]Please cut that shit out immediately[/sup]
I prefer it, actually. I especially like it when a girl I’m interested in does it. It sounds sexy for some reason. Besides, in my family, there are (or were, before father time and St Peter called) several Pauls, so “Casey” draws less confusion. I’ve been called “Case” on occasion, and there are only 3-4 people for whom I will reply to “Pauly”.
No one ever calls me by my last name (I’m female), although I wouldn’t mind if they did. I have very fond memories of listening to my Dad and his friends call each other by their last names, and I was a little sad when I realized that my brother gets called my his (our) last name. It always seems like such a fun, friendly, guy-bonding sort of thing.
One interesting (for lack of a better word) thing about this though is that often, people call both my dad and my brother by the first three letters of our last name, rather than the whole name. Which is fine. Except that in some regions, that short word is also a somewhat dated vulgar slang word for the female anatomy. My brother was confused by the reactions he got to this nickname when he first moved to another part of the country.
I usually go by my initials, which is fine. My first-middle name combination seems “regional”, so I prefer the last name to that.
I think it’s cool. I only know two people I call by their last names, but that’s because they introduce themselves that way. No one’s ever called me regularly by my last name, which is kind of a shame, as I think my name is cool.
I have one friend who calls me by my middle name, and I call her by hers, just because it’s cute. And one friend I refer to by her e-mail username, which is a combination of her first and last names, because I like the sound of it.
Oh you are singing my song. My first name is Elizabeth and I cannot tell you how many people just arbitrarily shorten it to Liz or Beth.
/sigh
My name is nine letters long, yes, and also four syllables. So what? It’s not that hard to say.
As far as the last name question, I had a very hard to pronounce last name before I got married, so even in the Army, no one called me by my last name.
It doesn’t bother me at all. And it is much more useful in an office where we have two Steves, two Bills, two consultants named Dave with a last initial of F and a consultant named Jack and a sales manager named Jack. People at work rarely use my last name to my face, but many of my friends do. It isn’t a problem.
The spelling of my last name is very hard to pronounced, most attempts to read it aloud for the first time come out like: “Burr-uh…burr-og…burrug? Can I just call you the FunkySpaceCowboy?” But my first name is only one easy syllable so most people default to that. However at my last job there were two Josh’s, I ended up going by FunkySpaceCowboy because it was actually easier to say that than either of our last names, and both of us considered the use of our initials a capital offense, so it was just easier to use my nom de plume. But to answer the actual question in the OP, I have no problems when people use my lastname, provided they pronounce it correctly (not a problem if you’ve heard it) I kinda like it when prefixed by “Mr.” as well, makes me sound important. If anyone ever tried it I think I’d be OK with “Mr. B” as well. As stated above though if you use my initials (either JD, JB or JDB) to address me I’ll cut out your heart and feed it to 
The only person I’ve ever addressed by his last name consistantly is an old buddy from college, Cooper, sometimes just Coop. But “Cooper” is one of those rare lastnames that lends itself well to general usage.
I prefer the last name, actually. My students have this problem where they call me Mrs. when I am just Ms. I always tell them, “you’re turning me into my dead mother!” and that usually takes care of the problem. Most of the kids with whom I’m close call me by the last name only, sans honorific.
So yeah, in general, my plain old last name would be favored over the first. I have never liked my first name but I’m OK with the last… so much so that I think I’m not changing it if I get married.
Living in L.A., if anyone tried to address me by my last name I’d probably think they were talking to someone else who had my last name for their first name. How surprising that would be, since my last name is van Scoyoc. We don’t do last names very much here.
I like it, but being female, there have been very few people who have called me that–mostly male buddies. It has a good association for me.
And no, my last name’s not Bean. If it were, I’d make everybody call me that. It would be cool to be called Bean.
I like it. My former boss Steve did (and still does) this. He started doing it just after 9/11 – we were relocated and seven of us were crammed into one small room. None of us had much work to do, so we spent a lot of time messing around and chatting and getting to know one another. A bunch of us called Steve by his last name, probably to differentiate him from another Steve. For some reason he started doing the same for me, though there’s no one else by my name. He didn’t do it for any of the others. I think it gave the two of us a sense of camaraderie, which was something we needed under somewhat trying circumstances.
I’m often called by my last name, never really bothered me. I do hate it, though, when people decide to rhyme my last name with other things. Those of you who can decypher my last name from my username will see why.
Nobody’s ever tried, my last name is long and very confusing to read, though not to pronounce. I don’t think I’d appreciate it though, it doesn’t seem very respectful.
Contrary and DMark make very good points. When people shorten my first name, that ticks me royally. I’ve just met you, you’ve been told my name is Veronica, don’t mess with it!
I was the only female working at an aluminum plant one summer. I liked it when my co-workers called me by my last name, because it felt like I was accepted as “one of the guys.” It’s kind of like getting “the nod.” But then, I have a nice simple 2-syllable last name, so it sounds good.
I’ve a bunch of friends and teachers call me by my last name, probably because it’s a lot more exciting than my first name. I certainly don’t mind, as long as they don’t make fun of it too much 
There’s someone in my circle of friends that we always call by his last name. Reason is, his name is John, and there are some three Johns or Jons in our group. So we call them all by last name, but this guy has especially adopted that identity for some reason. There’s a school of thought that believes his mother calls him by his last name.
As for me, it depends, really. I like my last name, but I have three siblings of the same age as me, so when I’m called by my last name, it gives me an unpleasant feeling of not having an individual identity. It bugged me for years that a friend of mine would always call both my brother and I by our last name. I was very happy when she actually started remembering my first name.
Despite all this, I don’t mind being called by my last name if it’s an individual thing or setting. I actually prefer it to my first name except for the group identity thing. If people in, say, college or a work environment were to call me that, I wouldn’t mind at all.
I can also sympathise with people wanting to be called by their names as given. I don’t actually have a problem with that… but I introduce myself as Greg, which is why people call me that. If I said my name is Gregory, you would call me Gregory, dammit! I feel I can relate because of the number of people that spell my name as “Gregg.” I hate, hate, hate that. It’s not my name, for crying out loud!