Is it common to call your friends or peers by their last name?

38 comments

1. Relatively common. I have a few friends that I call by their last name. Seems more common when you are young, like until college.

   Then as an adult it is less common.

2. It’s something you see sometimes in high-school/college athletes sometimes guys in the military together I’ve seen do it too but it’s not really all the common in my experience

3. Yeah. I have a few friends that I call by their last name, and a few call me by my last name.

4. Especially if you have four Daniels at one party

5. In my case a bunch of my friends/acquaintances have the same first name as me so yes. I grew up in a very non diverse area though so keep that in mind.

6. Yeah, I’m exclusively called by my last name by my group of friends from high school. They’ve been calling me it for 25 years. Another of those guys is also called exclusively by his last name as well.

7. I go almost exclusively by the first syllable of my last name, to the point that casual acquaintances are sometimes surprised it isn’t my first name. Had a close friend growing up with the same first name as me, and we both went with our surnames for clarity. Bonus point is that I think it sounds better too.

8. It was only common when I played sports as a kid, and somewhat at university. Not at all afterwards.

9. I’ve never experienced that or seen that personally.

10. It happens but IME it’s not all that common. Most of my friends growing up went by their first name.

11. I’ve gone by my last name most of my life. We had 4 boys with the same first name in my grade, so we went by last name, it stuck.

12. I have a pretty identifiable last name and a pretty generic first name, so some people have taken to calling me by my last name.

13. I get called by last name only because in my friend I share my first name with another friend

14. This is more common among teenage boys.

15. It’s not uncommon. Some people may not go by their whole last name but instead by the first syllable or a shortened version. At one point I was friends with a few other people that shared the same name so they called us by our last names (or called out our first name to see if we all would turn around).

16. I personally don’t but know plenty of folks that do.

    So I’d say not extremely common but not uncommon.

17. In my experience yes, very common. But then I married into a military family. So there’s that.

    But also I used to work in an office with 4 men named Chris and 2 of them had the same last initial. So one of them we started referring to by his last name and it just stuck. Now everyone we know (socially and at work) calls him by his last name.

18. It’s not super common, but it happens. I went by my last name for years as a 911 dispatcher!

    Reason: there was another Jen and she had seniority. I chose my last name over my middle name because our scheduler had that name.

19. Sometimes. I went by my last name in high school band because we had someone else with my first name. A few of the people I still see around the area nowadays still call me that.

20. I have some friends from high school and college who still call me by my last name (they were very glad I didn’t change it when I married lol) but I wouldn’t say it’s super common.

21. We did in my fraternity because there was too many guys named Joe, Mike, and John.

22. Sometimes.

    At one office I worked at, it was common to use last names if there were multiple people with the same first name and last initial in the same department.

    These are made up, but Brad Sanchez, Brad Schultz, and Brad Lee would be called Sanchez, Schultz, and Lee.

    If they were Brad Hernandez, Brad Schultz, and Brad Lee, they would be called B.H., B.S., and B.L.

    A side anecdote: at this company, I was Amy until I got promoted and was in the same department as another Amy, and then I became AK, which turned into AK47, which turned into just 47.

23. It just depends on your bunch. For some people yes. Others will say no. Both are acceptable.

24. I play rec league sports and this is common within the group. Or people have nicknames that we call them by.

25. I have a few friends and coworkers that I call by there last name.

    Coworkers it’s generally due to having multiple people with the same first name.

26. Teenage boys-common, especially in sports.

    Men – depends on the social class and the setting, but not rare.

    Teenage girls – Rare but not quite unheard of if they play sports.

    Women – I’ve never run into it. I’m sure it’s happened to at least somebody.

27. Not common, but not unheard of. When you have 7 friends named “Will” you have to figure out a system. And if you have a common first name, it’s more common

    Also: if you’re an American boy in high school or college, play sports, and have a Slavic last name, you go by your last name 100%

28. Yes, but generally this comes about as essentially a nickname to avoid duplication – for example, my department at work once had 5 Mikes, so we called them by their last names. One of my friend groups had two Alexs, so we called one Alex and the other his last name.

29. Not really.

    When I was in high school it was common for the guys on my basketball team to call each other by the last name.

    And a couple of my coworkers call me by my last name (since I share a first name with a manager on our team).

    But none of my friends call me by my last name and I don’t do that for anyone.

30. In athlete circles yea

31. In the Army I went for months without knowing the first name of someone I would literally have jumped on a grenade for.

32. I got in the habit of doing this when I played sports in High School. I still do it occasionally. We have a lot of Jennifers at my work place, and I just started calling them all by their last name and other people picked up on it.

    None of them objected, if they had I would obviously have stopped.

33. Only if it’s funny enough

34. Much more common for men than women.

35. i have a last name that lends itself to this. people call me by my last name with no prompting, they just do it.

    me, my brother, my dad, and my grandfather were all referred to as our last name. that’s as far back as i noticed, it surely was more.

    so yes, in my case it is common.

36. Sure, when there’s room for confusion.

    There are a couple people in my office with the same first name and there’s another person with my first AND last name (not related to me!). The first group are generally called by their last names. Myself and the other guy with my name have earned nicknames.

37. my dad used to work with a guy named Chris Oglesby and still only calls him Oglesby

38. I’ve gone by (a shortening of) my last name because there was another person with the same first name. And it somewhat stuck so some people still call me that. I have called a friend by his last name for a long time, since high school. But I don’t think I’ve regularly referred to people I’ve met in college or after by their last name.