I have seen this from people all over the world. It's not "like we know them", it's just a quip to make the conversation more intimate.
Ask HN: Why do Americans speak about family by their names, like we know them?
21–30 of 52 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why do Americans speak about family by their names, like we know them?
#22Canadian here, and I do this too.
Part of the reason is that it's like passively introducing the person, or reminding the listener of the person's name, without the listener needing to ask.
I have a horrible time remembering names, esp. co-workers' spouce/kids names. I appreciate it when they do this.
EDIT: Western Canadian, and Shauna does this too :)
Re: Ask HN: Why do Americans speak about family by their names, like we know them?
#23From the US, and don't find this that common. I also find it incredibly annoying, but that's probably because the last one had a spouse with my same first name.
If I had to even try to pin it down, I'd maybe say it could be a younger person or west coast thing?
On the east coast, I've never worked with anyone who called their relatives by name. I haven't worked with many younger people on the east coast though, to be fair.
Re: Ask HN: Why do Americans speak about family by their names, like we know them?
#24I don't think there has to be a reason, any more than there's a reason why Americans say "y'all" or "howdy" or "dude". People just pick up habits from each other.
Beware of looking for deep reasons for shallow phenomena.
Re: Ask HN: Why do Americans speak about family by their names, like we know them?
#25I notice this a lot with my European, African, and Latin American colleagues as well.
I’m not sure it’s a general trend, really gotta be weary of the “couple people in my life do x” -> “why do {general class} do x?” movement
Re: Ask HN: Why do Americans speak about family by their names, like we know them?
#26It's a much more personal/intimate way of interacting with someone. I know the names of many/most of my co-worker's SOs and kids and vice versa.
Some people's personal/intimate interaction is creepy to other people. Not everyone wants to be best friends or even overly familiar with their co-workers.
Re: Ask HN: Why do Americans speak about family by their names, like we know them?
#27Canadian here, and I do this too. Part of the reason is that it's like passively introducing the person, or reminding the listener of the person's name, without the listener needing to ask. I have a horrible time remembering names, esp. co-workers' spouce/kids names. I appreciate it when they do this. EDIT: Western Canadian, and Shauna does this too :)
To me, it comes off as a passive aggressive neg that I haven't learned their family's names yet or something. Like I owe that to them. Seems a tad self-involved to assume that people care about your personal life in the first place.
Re: Ask HN: Why do Americans speak about family by their names, like we know them?
#28Because that's the etiquette norm.
The norm reflects the attitude that someone's name represents them as a person rather than some role of theirs. It is therefore seen as more respectful to use this form of reference wherever possible rather than "reducing them to their role".
Pretty much all norms like this are culturally determined with just-as-strong-arguments being available for doing it some other way, but if you want to play basketball, you have to learn the rules of basketball, and if you want to exist within some particular society...
Within this norm, one introduces the name ("my girlfriend Emma") and expects the other to either remember Emma is their girlfriend or to be able to fake remembering that Emma is their girlfriend (the latter is a major part of the norm).
It's also the case that not using the person's name signals keeping your interlocutor at a distance, equivalent to "I wouldn't want to introduce you to this person", which in informal workplaces is seen as rude. For you as the person who does not have a direct relationship with Emma, it's not inherently disrespectful to the girlfriend to fall back into the anonymous mode of reference ("you said your girlfriend was on a vacation?") but showing that you remember the name is a social signal that you care about your coworker.
There are much more complicated regional/socioeconomic/cultural variants and subtle shades on all this, of course. Among my father's family, given names aren't common in reference, but all references to shared relatives -- even among adults -- are given not relative to the speaker, but to the audience ("your cousin" instead of "my sister", "your father" instead of "my uncle"). This is much harder to do than you'd think if you didn't grow up doing it!
Re: Ask HN: Why do Americans speak about family by their names, like we know them?
#29Not universal at all. All of my colleagues, as well as myself, refer to our wives as "my wife" and kids as "my son" or "my daughter". Even though I've worked with these folks a few years, I don't often mention my family members by name.
Re: Ask HN: Why do Americans speak about family by their names, like we know them?
#30There are a huge number of cultural differences in the US to other places, with all sorts of different reason behind them (seriously it is like being on a different planet), and the reasons can be hard to pin down.
However, a lot of them, and I think this one included, can be put down to the ethos with which Americans interact with each other. In other Western countries (perhaps with the exception of Mediterranean Europe) it is considered polite to not expect things of your interlocutor unless you know them well, and even then, not so much. In the US it seems to me that it is much more acceptable to be somewhat demanding of strangers, for their time and attention, and it is expected that you will do the same back. When an American uses first names for their family, they are, if we were to exaggerate greatly, be saying "How stranger! This is my family, I demand you WILL know them, and I will follow your demands that I know yours, as is custom in these parts, now let us break bread."... I know it's ridiculous, but I find looking at things this way helped me a lot.