last-name
verbEtymology Denominal verb of last name.
1
Rare To address by last name.
- In some schools or businesses, inferiority is underscored by last-naming alone. Superiors receive [title + last name], but inferiors are called by their last names alone. If novels and mystery stories are to be believed, in England servants were often last-named without titles, as were students. As late as the 1950s, in the staid New England high school I went to, boys were last-named alone, but girls were [Miss + last name]. In some schools or social circles today, mutual last-naming by peers is a sign of intimacy or affection.1982, Elaine Chaika, “[Style of speech] The United States, a case in point”, in Language: The Social Mirror, Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House Publishers, Inc., →ISBN, page 49:
- The most useful test of whether unsought informality presents problems is this: when practitioners feel comfortable being first-named by their patients. If you expect to be called Doctor or Nurse so-and-so, reciprocate the respect by last-naming your patients.1983 September, Peter H[artley] Gott, “Forced Familiarity”, in Connecticut Medicine: The Journal of the Connecticut State Medical Society, volume 47, number 9, New Haven, Conn.: Connecticut State Medical Society, →ISSN, page 579, columns 1–2:
1 more example
- By last-naming those whom I am expected to last-name and by answering to my first name when those who are authorized to first-name me do so and by insisting that those unauthorized to first-name me use my last name, I submit to and enforce the distribution of status that drives naming conventions.2016, Sarah Conrad Sours, “Mad Manners: Courtesy, Conflict, and Social Change”, in Ann W[illiams] Duncan, Jacob L[ynn] Goodson, editors, The Universe is Indifferent: Theology, Philosophy and Mad Men, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: The Lutterworth Press, published 2017, →DOI, →ISBN, Part 1 (Business Ethics), pages 55–56: