It’s not a childhood trauma thing. I had a decent upbringing. I’ve been like this all my life. I’ll talk about people using their name to others when the named person isn’t around, but I avoid using their name as a vocative to their face.
Same thing with people using my name. I don’t mind people summoning me by calling my name, but I cringe when people use my name as a vocative in front of me. I also get irritated when people I don’t know and have no intention of establishing a relationship with use my name.
I worked in a call center and we had the usual opening “thank you for calling _____ my name is early_riser, how can I help you?” I assumed the unspoken rule was that I’m giving my name so the client can later refer to me in complaints or commendations, not because I want to establish anything more than a client-employee relationship. Also, I always use “sir” or “ma’am” when addressing clients, and hope they reciprocate that respect.
Edit:
Yes I know what names are for. Also “angry” was too strong a word. I don’t lash out at people when they do this. I understand that people are trying to be friendly when they use my name and that the irritation is unwarranted, but it’s there and I want to know why.
I wonder how much of this has to do with the fact that most of us don’t chose the name we have? I’ve met people whom simply do not “look like” their name. It feels strange to refer to them by something that feels…other. I imagine this is why some cultures allow people to move through names as their lives go on. If we were given the space to emerge as a name, one embodied and truly ours, I think this phenomenon would be lessened.
I’ve never thought about it, but if I do think about it, it does make me a little uncomfortable. I think it may stem from have the focus brought squarely on me, or when I say someone else’s name, I’m putting them in the spotlight.
It may be similar, but I struggle hard with eye contact. Always have since I was a young child. I can pull it off well enough in professional settings, but otherwise I can’t stare at people’s eyes.
Eye contact is also hard for me.
If you work in a call centre it might be the de-escalation training they gave you. I have the same issue with my name and I know it is coming from the fact that I know that people in call centres are trained to address the caller by name very often to… calm them? Establish a good relationship? I don’t know but it makes me furious if someone is doing this to me.
lol what training? They just had me shadow someone for a few days while they set up my station.
I hate being called “sir” it sounds pretentious as fuck. Use my name, its far more personable and normal. Titles are like dress codes - completely made up theater that people play along with.
In the event of a call center scenario, it wouldn’t even be hard to track down who took the call whether they remembered my name or not, so I still wouldn’t care.
The only time it would be weird/annoying is if the person so constantly using my name instead of a pronoun, or if they’re using a tone to imply negativity toward it.
Yeah, we got rid of nobility for a reason. Demanding being called sir, madame, doctor, etc. Is just a holdover of middle class envy towards aristocracy. I’d much rather prefer to be called by my name than some arbitrary words meant to separate people into hierarchies.
I think in this case it’s more about them repeating your name. Feels fake.
In general I don’t use titles but at work I usually call men sir when they’re 50+ and I’ve never seen someone get bothered by it. It feels weird to go up to a stranger and say “Hi Brian, I heard you’re having chest pain today and I have some questions for you” or whatever. They don’t react negatively and seem to feel more respected. I don’t call women “m’am” because I know that can be irritating.
I think doctor only makes sense when you’re in a role at work. If you’re a visitor at a salon, don’t insist on it. If my boyfriend is booking a plane ticket he shouldn’t add Dr., but if he’s at a conference for fellow PhDs they should. If I’m at work they better call me doctor and not Miss or by my first name or I’ll be big madMust be a cultural thing. Where I’m from, if a doctor doesnt call you by name it is a red flag. It means they didn’t read the patient’s file. Teachers would flag student doctors negatively for it. You treat people, not loosely grouped collections of symptoms. Nurses are also strictly trained to call people by name (perhaps by Mr/ms surname, but that’s part of a holdover from reinforcing hierarchies), you know why? Because our hospitals have wards of anything between 12 and 30 beds and up. Calling “Sir please return to your bed” means nothing with 40 men in the same room, you have to be specific.
On the other hand, if you work a position of power, most people will call you doctor. It’s lawyers fault, really, as they historically used to hold all the political positions. They insisted so aggressively to be called doctors that now anyone in a position of authority or hierarchy, however slight it might be, is called doctor, even if they aren’t. Including in the medical field. Tons of people who aren’t doctors in medicine are called doctors, students of medicine are called doctors from day one, administration staff in medical settings will be called doctor, etc.
It also reinforces the first part. Lowly patients must call everyone inside a hospital doctor, but doctors don’t owe any title to anyone below them. Sure, it might arise from general ignorance about how the education system works, but it also illustrates how titles are always about separating people into hierarchies. It’s just an academic dick measuring contest.
Where are you from? Do you have a caste system? I’m in the US and I am pretty nice to patients and it’s rare that someone has a problem with me. Here we are called medical student or student doctor but it’s pretty clear we aren’t the ones in charge so it’s not like we’re tricking the patients.
I trained at a center with a majority population of Black and brown people and a lot of disadvantaged people, so I thought calling every man sir was a good idea, since it gave the implication I didn’t think I was any better than them. We have a long history of medical racism here. Or more rarely I do Mr/Ms Firstname
Latinamerica, no caste system. But tons of colonialism.
Lotta machismo too.
Very interesting, ty for giving me another perspective. I find titles onerous unless you’re working–don’t call me Dr at the corner store, I’m not gonna thank a random off-duty veteran for their service, etc–because it ranks people as though some are more worthy than others. I didn’t know that about lawyers in latin america
For most people, their own name is one of their favorite sounds in the world. If my friends didn’t call me by my name, I wouldn’t think we were as close of friends.
If you know somebody’s name, it’s really good and normal to greet them using their name. Even if you only say their name during the greeting, it will improve relationships and moods with just that. It’s so important that I would even recommend that you “fake it 'till you make it” in this case. Even if it feels awkward, start greeting people in person by saying something like, “Hi Steve,” or whatever similar greeting feels comfortable to you.
You can use people’s names more that that, but it’s a skill how to use names without being too weird. So if you’re not used to it, start with greetings.
I’m blind, which I could have mentioned in the OP for extra context but eh. People often greet me without telling me who they are, or even making it clear I’m the one they’re greeting.
Remembering names, as I understand it, is a very visual thing. Humans use visual cues to tell people apart. I don’t have that option, and there’s no polite way for me to say “hi, who are you again?” When I have the chance I’ll tell people to identify themselves when saying hello to me, and ideally also remind me how I know them if they see me out and about as opposed to wherever I first met them.
If I only have to interact with you over a single day, I can pretty easily use things like clothing, hair and skin tone to differentiate people, but one change of clothes later and you’re a stranger. Over time I can match voices to names but it’s not as quick as the visual method. Odor is another big one, if they use perfume or body spray, if they smoke, or if they cook in a way that produces distinct odors.
yes, it makes me really uncomfortable! I had a friend who would always say my name while talking to me, and it felt somehow… diminutive? Like she was trying to be motherly? I don’t know.
I had a friend in school who did this. Really nice guy, but he would constantly say your name while having a regular conversation. It was always unnerving and distracting.
I had multiple classmates do this too and they were genuinely wonderful people. I think they heard it once as a tactic and decided to keep using it. Nothing against them but it’s terrible advice What if it was a psyop to make life more difficult for autistic people lol
Oh my gosh, I genuinely thought I was the only one who felt this way.
I’ve even seen people online in smaller communities referring to each other by their first names instead of their user handles and it always made me cringe a little for some reason haha
The bright side being that I’m completely immune to “neurolinguistic programming” or whatever weird shit manipulators are taught to use. Every single time I hear my name emphasized or repeated, it’s like I can hear the slash 8-bit sfx and my HP going down.
Do this enough times and I will begin to avoid you like an actual viral contagion, bwahaha
Chiming in with the ‘you might be neurodivergent’ crowd.
Absolutely typical.
Welcome and feel free to ping if you want to know stuff.
I so agree. I can’t quite explain why but it feels so weird. I know my name.
Chiming in to say, yep, me too. One example that used to really drive me nuts was when I’d go to the gym and the person at the front desk would acknowledge me by name, even though we’ve never had an actual conversation or anything. It felt fake and forced and I hated it so much.
I also always felt so awkward as a kid talking about my friends’ parents. Mr./Mrs. LastName usually felt weird, but it also usually felt weird to use their first names, so I’d almost always refer to them as Friend’s mom/dad.
Is your name a TrageDeliah or something?
But as someone with a Chinese Name in an English-Speaking country, I do feel very weird when someone calls my name…
They’ll never get the real version of the name, only an Anglicanized version of it.
It feels weird, like it feels kinda like a name that only Chinese people are supposed to call me, having a non-Chinese say that name feels like if a teacher called you those nicknames only your family members are supposed calls you by…
I never feel weird saying someone elses name. Like wut bruh?
But yea I get it, the phone call giving their name is very weird to me… like c’mon you’re supposed to be a faceless nameless person who I talk to for 10 minutes lol
Even in person customer service is still weird unless you’re more long term… like I’m a client or something… like real estate agent or car sales person
Not fucking customer service or a fastfood, dont wanna know your name and I don’t like giving out mine either
Everybody to me is “Hey Y’all”
I don’t really use names either unless I have to or I’m very familiar with people. I’m very bad with names and I’m always afraid of calling someone the wrong name so even if I know their name, I still won’t call them by it because in a couple days, I may have forgotten their name and what if I’m wrong and I call someone I’ve known for years the wrong name?
Same for me. I don’t care about pronouns that are used for me but hearing or seeing my name used anywhere feels weird as hell. Maybe it just plays into my general dislike of being perceived.
I don’t like when people work my name into a conversation (“that’s a good point, glimse!” Not “hey glimse how’s it going?”) because it makes me…suspicious. Like mind instantly jumps to the tactic taught to sales people to build rapport with prospective customers.
My guess is that it’s a defense mechanism. I’ve been taken advantage of after blindly trusting someone before, now I’m predisposed to look for the signs.
I’m sure it doesn’t help that I don’t really love my name. I don’t care enough to change it but it wouldn’t have been my first pick.
