I never called my mother by her given name, but her Hebrew name, Malka, means queen, and I once in a while called her that. Not as a little kid-- I think for the first time when I was 15 or 16. I called her “my queen,” which she thought was funny.
I am a South Asian American (born and raised in Pakistan, but of South Indian heritage) and my wife is Chinese American (grew up in PRC).
In both our cultures we refer to anyone ~20 years older as “uncle” or “auntie”. My experience with the Caribbean American community from my cricket playing days is that this is commonplace in that culture as well.
When I was about 45 years old I met an “elderly” gentleman in a park. (Sneer quotes because I’m approaching that age now). I addressed his as uncle. My 6 year old daughter asked me if that was my uncle? I was explaining to her why we did that, and the gentleman had tears in his eyes. He said it wasn’t very often that the younger generation in the US uses this honorific, so he was touched to see me passing it down.
Almost no one in my daughter’s generation calls me uncle, neither the South-Asian Americans nor the East-Asian Americans. Sometimes they will (playfully) refer to my Indian Uncle clothes, mannerisms and language. I cannot even imagine doing that to my elders at that age. My daughter does refer to her friends parents as uncle and auntie. Some of them find it respectful, other hilarious.
vietnamese has relationship dependent “honorifics” , and yeah you use these and THen if you are just meeting or have to, , add the given name.
grandfather, “ong”, also means Sir, applies big boss.
uncle, older than your father, chu, also means sir or boss, such as a senior police officer even if they might be younger than you
Of course the same applies for aunty and grandmother, and all the variations on the theme for the aunties and uncles who are younger than the connection parent. (the four words , like zi, co , apply to mothers younger brother, fathers younger sister. etc, but I forget them. )
then for just someone about your own age, eg your class mate, you have to decide, which to use, em for younger, anh for older male, chi for older female, but when it comes to using these with your first cousins, the deciding age is the relative ages of your connection parent…. So all your fathers older brothers male children are anh, even if they are younger, but dont worry much if you mistake this lol. they will just proceed, and call you the correctly. But in romantic relationship, anh and em is the normal, despite actual age.
It’s generically the other way around in Aus. Some of the large cultural groups have or had family relationships completely unrelated to standard European extended-family or nuclear family relationships, and have specific words for things like “specific brother of my mothers husband”, that all collapsed into English words like “Uncle”.
Australia has significant different major cultural groups so generalisations like that are fraught.
In Japan it is pretty much all honorifics all the time, even though it is hardly thought of in that way. Just about everybody you address is [last name] + san which in English is the equivalent of Mr/Ms. Or you use some other suffix like last name + Sensei. This is true even among adult friends, though that will depend on if they made friends as adults or children. If they are childhood friends they may address each other as last name + kun, or + chan. Additionally you have layers of hierarchy so you may be addressing someone as name + senpai, and that just depends on them not being older but being in a position ahead of you.
I have never heard anyone call someone else oku-san outside of a familial relationship (e.g. a husband calling his wife that), or to describe someone (as in: What does your wife think?). I don’t know where your friend learned that was a proper way to address people of a certain age, but I can understand why she would be offended. I don’t think it was an age related thing at all.
As @TokyoBayer points out, these days the use of Ojisan (uncle) and Obasan (aunt) are used almost exclusively by kids or within a family group, though they may also be used, not to address someone but as a descriptor of an older man/woman when talking about them, rather than to them. Also, you have to be careful how you pronounce it because if elongate the i in ojisan or the a in onbasan they turn into a grandfather or a grandmother.
I was once helping in a class and the Sensei told the child I was helping: Onisan (older brother) is now going to work with you, or something to that effect, which given my age, especially in relation to the child was quite a nice of him to say. He could have simply used Ojisan instead.
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