Do you adress your teachers/professors by first name or by Mr./Mrs. last name?

37 comments

1. Everyone is on first name basis with everyone. Doesn’t matter if it’s the teacher/professor, the headmaster/mistress, or anyone else. It’s nice and laid back, and it makes your teachers seem much more approachable and open, when there isn’t such a mental and linguistic barrier.

   I have also studied abroad, where titles were strictly adhered to, and all save two of my professors enforced it themselves. It felt very cold and distant to me, being used to the casual way. One of the two who didn’t enforce it said he didn’t care if we used Professor or a nickname. That latter professor (being so open and chill) was also the one who had most interaction from students outside class and had the most visits to office hours

2. Here in Denmark practically everyone is addressed by their first name, and I only say “practically” because the queen and her immediate family isn’t. If we exclude them, everyone from your oldest friend to the Prime Minister is addressed by their first name.

3. Mr/Mrs Last Name, almost all the time, in schools. Exceptions might be with very young children (under 5), where it’s often “Mrs First Name” or some adult educational places. University is a mixed bag, a lot of “Professor/Dr So-and-so” but also a lot of “just call me David” or whatever.

4. Finnish kids probably still mostly just say ”ope” (short for ’opettaja’, meaning teacher). There’s usually only one teacher in the classroom, so why even use any names. But if a name is used, then it’s pretty much always the first name (this is including university lecturers), unless there are two or more teachers with the same first name. Then other might be called with the last name (but last name only, nothing in front of it).

   Now that I think of it, I’m not sure if I’m ever addressed a person as mr/mrs Last name in Finnish. Including the couple of cabinet ministers I’ve met.

5. Depend on the age:

   – Maternelle (2 years of preschool and 1 of kindergarten): kids use the first name only (education is mandatory at 3, so, kids borne after september starts at 2.5yo)

   – Elementary: kids says “Maître/Mâitresse” (Mister/Mistress), that’s when they slowly have to starts using the formal “vous” instead of “tu” pronouns.

   – Middle and high school: kids says “Monsieur/Madame” (Mr/Mrs)

   Uni: students either says “professeur”, “Monsieur/Madame” or first name with laid back teachers.

6. First-name basis and “informal you”, at all educational stages. Not only with teachers, also with other adults such as your friends’ parents. Calling adults “Mr. __” (or “Don __”, another traditional form of address in Spain) is very outdated in Spain.

7. First name + patronim considered official way to adress someone in Ukraine. Maybe some first-graders may address their teacher by first name solely, but in most cases it would be rude and unaccepteble.

8. I’m from the Middle East and we call our teacher with their first name, so: Mr. [First name]

   I now live in Belgium and it’s the same as in English, so it’s Mr. [Last name], both in Flanders and Wallonia.

9. Always name + patronymic (for example, Ivan Ivanovich). That’s the standard polite way to address anyone, especially teachers.

   We don’t have an equivalent for Mr/Mrs/Dr/Herr/Frau. The closest one was “tovarishch”, but nobody says it anymore for good reasons, and even that sounded kinda clunky and impolite. We do use Mr/Mrs in fiction, though. When James Bond is called Mr. Bond, he’ll be Mr. Bond in Russian, too, not James Andrewich (although that’d be funny).

10. At least when I attended them, in primary school it was always juf(frouw) (“female teacher”) or meester (“male teacher”) followed by their first name.

    In secondary schools the “juf” and “meester” were replaced by “mevrouw” (madam) and “meneer” (mister) respectively, followed by the last name. Some teachers allowed you to call them by the first name, in which case you didn’t use any titles, but this was rare (I only had 2 or 3) and they were all young.

    In university, the lecturer is usually a professor, but I don’t recall anyone actually addressing their professor as “professor” (unless you were gossiping and using the title in a mocking manner). I always referred to them by “meneer” or “mevrouw” last name.

11. I think saying that it gets you into trouble in Germany is a bit misleading. It is simply not done so it doesn’t happen accidentally. Only if a pupil really wanted to provoke a teacher it would be done deliberately.

    But in general, trouble in the German school system doesn’t mean harsh punishments. I don’t know a single case where someone had to do detentions. It’s mostly just talking to the teacher or with the parents or in more serious cases with the headmaster.

12. School (both primary and secondary) – Mr / Ms last name. Although I went to a primary school where we addressed teachers by their first name. While this is getting more common it still isn’t the norm.

    Universities – always first name.

    We are a very informal country. Everyone is addressed by their first name, even the CEOs or the Taoiseach (prime minister). School teachers are one of the only exceptions, along with some formal written communication.

13. In Ireland it seems to depend on the language of instruction. English speaking schools generally go with last name and Irish speaking schools with first name. I’ve no idea why or how this distinction came to be.

14. I’d like to add a bit more detail to Germany, though it might be a bit outdated, since I’m an old fart.

    In primary school, we used Frau/Herr [last name], but the informal Du.

    In secondary school, we shifted to the formal Sie.

    Funnily enough, at least in my time it was considered rude to address a professor at uni with their title(s). It was “Herr Schmidt”, never “Herr Professor Schmidt”, and certainly never “Herr Professor Dr. Schmidt”. The idea is that students, lecturers, and professors are all in it together as basically equals on a quest for knowledge. I have been told that this is slowly changing, though.

15. In Portugal, people just call them “professor/professora” (masculine/ feminine respectively), which means both teacher and professor. Usually no name is used when addressing them directly. Also formal pronouns are used, maybe with the exception of some primary school teachers.

    Technically you’re supposed to refer to teachers as Dr. [Name] in formal situations – in Portugal, Dr. is commonly used for any university graduate – and another form of address used mostly around middle and secondary school is “stor/stora”, a shortening of “senhor doutor/senhora doutora” (Mr./Ms. Doctor). [Edit: The equivalent of “Mr/Ms” on its own is never used for teachers because it typically implies that the person works in an unqualified job or a trade.]

    Even if a teacher or professor or teaching assistant explicitly says they’re ok with first name treatment, with no title, most students are too uncomfortable with it to actually use it, in my experience.

    Last thing to add would be that it’s super common in Portugal to use first names with titles and it’s not considered any less formal. So “Mr. David” isn’t any less formal than “Mr. Jones”. The formality in addressing teachers comes from using the title (usually by itself with no name) and formal pronouns.

16. Here in Spain kids use “profe”, the short way of saying “profesor/a” (teacher). In university I’ve been told sometimes to speak by the first names to my teachers, said by them tho. It’s too formal to use “usted” or “sr/sra”.

17. In the primary school children call their teacher with “maestro/maestra [name of the teacher]”.

    From the middle school onwards, it’s “professor/professoressa [surname of the teacher] or more shortly and simply “prof”.

    Calling a teacher simply by his/her name is considered a “lack of respect”.

18. In primary school, it is generally permissible to call teachers by their first name, but from middle school and even more so in high school, greater deference to teachers is required, so one addresses them as *professore* (masculine) or *professoressa* (feminine), usually shortened to *prof*, and if necessary addresses them by their surname.

19. Czechia and Slovakia – we say Mr. Teacher/ Mrs. Teacher (regardless of marital status). When referring to a teacher with someone else we use their last name/ or the above + last name if you’re being formal such as when speaking with a different teacher

    In university we’d use Mr./Mrs. Colleague or the specific title of the teacher (professor is a title in its own right) – Bakalář/Bachelor (never really used because if you’re only that you’d be a colleague), Magistr/Master, Doktor/Doctor, Profesor/Profesor.

20. You adress teachers by Mr. or Mrs. (*Last name*). In university you adress them by their respective title, if they’re a professor you *have* to call them professor (*Last name*), they might take offense if you don’t and even if they don’t, you look uncultured and immature (as if you’re still in highschool).

    Generally if you don’t know someone you call them Mr. or Mrs.

    “Mister/ Miss, you dropped your wallet”. Even if you’re 80 and they’re 30. Obviously not if they’re teens/kids.

    If you do know them but they can be your mother/father or grandmother/grandfather, you adress them with the title for relatives – aunt/uncle (*First name*) or grandma/grandpa (*First name*). It’s rude to adress your elders, even if they’re your family, by first name only. You adress by first name only your friends, or people your age.

    Fun fact, in communist Bulgaria students adressed their teacher (but also anyone, really) by what in english is called *comrade*. So it would’ve been “comrade *Last name*” lol

21. In Germany it depends on the subject! I would NEVER have used any of my uni teachers’ first names in the History department but there were a few in the English department who introduced themselves to students with their first names.

22. When addressing a teacher directly, it’s standard to say *Proszę Pani/Proszę Pana* (literally meaning *[please] Mrs/Mr*), without specifying their name. We unfortunately never address by just the first name.

    When talking about them politely in the third person, you’d use the surname like *Pani Kowalska* (*Mrs Kowalska*).

    Specifying a name when addressing someone directly, like *Pani Aniu* (*Mrs Anna*) would rather be done in kindergarten or some early primary school classes, where the teacher wants to seem more friendly or close to the children.

    In high school, it’s customary to address teachers by *Pani Profesor/Panie Profesorze* (*Mrs Professor/Mr Professor*), even when they’re not actual professors, which is weird. Ever less of them require that though.

    In university, it’s customary to address academics by their real academic title like *Pani Doktor*, *Pani Profesor*, etc., especially in official correspondence, although again it depends on personal preference, i.e. whether someone’s chilled or has too much to prove.

23. Elementary school informal you + maestro/a and their first name if necessary

    Middle school and up formal you + professore/professoressa (almost always shortened in prof) and their surname if necessary

24. I’m from Norway, we basically always call our teachers by their first name. Can only think of one exception in all my years of schooling – it wasn’t Mrs. Lastname tho, she just wanted to be called LastName basically.

25. It’s usually “teacher/professor [last name]” in elementary and high school. I can’t imagine calling them by their first name, even years after I left school.

    In kindergarten you can use “teta [first name]”, which literally translates to “aunt [first name]”. You use the same for various cleaning and cooking staff in schools, it can sound weird to foreigners but I never heard anyone complain about it.

26. Depends on the school. Primary school it was last name for both I was on, I started out on an old fashioned high school and there were a few ‘cool’ teachers that could be adressed with je/jij but were still meester/mevrouw and mr. lastname in third person. The later high school was progressive and all of them went by first name and je/jij, except for one. He taught German of course.

    On university the students were still adressed by last name and “u” instead of je/jij but that was of course not kept up in most interactions outside lectures. It was for the professor to invite you to je/jij and use first name if you got to know eachother reasonably well.

27. Hungary – depends, but Hungarian in general is not big on names in address formulas.

    Kindergarten & early primary school: usually teacher’s first name plus “néni” or “bácsi” (“aunt”/”uncle”), so a teacher named Kovács Anna will be called “Anna néni”, “Aunt Anna”.

    Older primary education and above: depends on the teacher, some teachers want students to use their first name, others their last name. However, it’s very rare to address teachers by name, we usually just addressed them as “teacher” (“tanárnő”/”tanár úr”), “professor”, etc. If a name is absolutely necessary, it’s either “Kovács tanárnő” or “Anna tanárnő” but the latter sounds fairly awkward to me, so I’d say “Kovács Anna tanárnő”.

28. Mr./Mrs. First name, although sometimes Mr./Mrs Last name.

    I also have close friends that I call by their last name. This becomes a thing with men after they finish military service, since there most people call you by your last name (just last name, no “Mr.”). It becomes more like a nickname.

    Last names are a relatively new concept to Cyprus, introduced by the british during colonial times. When people had to start using last names, many just used their nickname as a last name, since those were used more often (and still are). I know many people whose last name is the nickname their grandfathers went by. Nicknames are used to make things easier, since [everyone has the same names](https://youtu.be/5JkQvRdvhG8?feature=shared).

29. Everyone here is being called by their name. I do originally come from Poland though and something like this would be unacceptable as well.

    To be fair I prefer when it’s more “friendly” than “formal”. I cringe every time I visit my home country and have to call people per mr/mrs.

30. Generally “mr./mrs. last name” in primary and secondary school. While the teachers call kids by their first name.

    From then on it becomes more and more equal, as students get older. In high school (gymnasium) we used to still call the teachers mr./mrs. last name. But they would call us “Sie” but with first name. So the grammatically polite pronoun, but combined with first names. Which doesnt otherwise exist in the german language as far as i know.

    In university it was kind of a mixed bag. Some teachers were still called “mr/mrs last name” or some by their first name. But either way it was usually equal. If i call the teacher mister, he better also call me that. But if i call them by their first name, they also can call me that. Essentially like any other relationship between two adults.

    What is very rare to non-existent here is referring to anyone by some kind of title. I would for example never even think of calling someone “professor” or “doctor”. Not even a medical doctor, but certainly not a teacher. The most formal thing i ever use is Herr/Frau so “mr/mrs last name”.

    Only exception being the military, where people are adressed by rank + last name, but that again goes both ways.

31. Formally addressing people in general is not a thing in Finland. Only situations where it’s expected is during military service and if you’re talking to the president, or a former president.

    It’s all about equality. If you call someone a Mr and he just calls you by your name, that would suggest that the other person is better than you or of a higher rank, and we take the equality thing quite seriously.

32. I went to school in France, it was Monsieur/Madame X. Later on (in high school) most teachers introduced themselves by their full name, although we’d have never dared calling them by their first name. Apart from one teacher who introduced himself as “my name is Monsieur X, you don’t need to know my first name”.

    I then went to uni in the UK where we were expected to call professors by their first name and that was definitely a cultural shock for me!

33. We don’t have any words in use that mean Mr./Mrs. or something like that. First name (full form) + patronymic is the casually respectful way. Last name is an official and sort of disrespectful way to address somebody.

34. Elementary school : kids call teachers by “maître / maîtresse” = “teacher”.

    After elementary school, students have to call teachers by Sir / Miss / Madam. They also have to use formal pronouns with all adults (vouvoiement). Any student who calls their teacher by their first name on purpose is in trouble. And will probably end up in detention if they keep doing it. [Teachers don’t like it at all !](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkOOXvlUP3M)

35. When I was a teenager in the 90s, we went on a school trip to Newcastle in northern England. One of the days was to be spent visiting an english school, and I managed to sneak into the batch of pupils that were to visit a public (that is, private) school for girls (along with a bunch of other boys from my class)

    We sat in the classroom, and after a while two things became apparent:

    1) We were way ahead of the english students in central subjects
    2) The headmistress didn’t catch our teacher’s name.

    It was obvious that she was trying to listen to the dialogue to extract it. I raised my hand to ask a question, and I got our teacher’s attention, and addressed him by his first name.

    Thirty seconds late the headmistress turned to him and addressed him warmly as “Mr. Stig”. To which our puzzled science teacher responded “oh, Stig is my first name, no Mister needed”.

    She looked like she’d seen a cosmic horror from then on.

36. We actually used to have a very rigid and over the top formal way of addressing people. It was based on starting with Mr./Ms/Mrs and then using the title of the person’s work.

    So as an example if a person was named Sven Andersson and was a director the formal way to address him would be “Mr Director” instead of using the person’s name.

    The more informal version would then be Mr. Andersson but was usually not to be used towards someone of higher social standing than you.

    Just using the name was almost exclusively done within the family and there was also “Ni” which could be used towards servants and people of lower social standing than you.

    Then there was “Du” which was mostly used towards children and younger relatives.

    By the 60s this system had gotten painfully outdated with the very progressive movements within society and was in desperate need of changes.

    So to equalize the way we spoke to each other and to get rid of the class based system which really underlined one’s position in society the [Du-Reform](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du-reformen) was put in place.

    Ofc there had already been a natural shift in society to stop using the title based system but the reform went all the way to making the most informal way of addressing people which was just the first name and/or using Du the standard.

    Nowadays because of the reform and the willingness to change among the people we address everyone except the royal family just by their first name and/or Du.

    Only time I’ve addressed someone more formally than that was my Swedish teachers in high school who the whole class half jokingly addressed as “magister” (title of Male teacher)

37. I am surprised at the amount of places where it is acceptable to address any teacher by their first name. In Canada, it is Mr./Mrs./Miss/Ms., followed by their surname. Sir or Madame is also acceptable. In university, professor followed by their surname.