What Do Your Kids Call Adults?

As my mother taught me while living in our informal neighborhood, our children call their friends’ mothers “Miss (insert first name).” So my friend Katie becomes Miss Katie. It’s simple and a little less formal than Missus or using a last name. As for the dads, we’ve always stuck with simply the first name. Why is it different? I’ll have to ask my mom. :)

In Pakistan, because the extended family plays such an important role in everyday life, every family member has a different title depending on their relation to the parent. If you are an aunt, you are either “khala” (mother’s sister) or “phupo” (father’s sister), if you are an uncle, you could be mamoo, taya or chacha depending on if you are the older or younger brother! Maternal grandparents are Nana and Nani and paternal grandparents are Dada and Dadi. Older cousins were referred to as “Appa” (female) or “Bhai” (male) for respect. And you could always throw in a “jaan” or “dear/love” to the end of every title as a sign of extra love and endearment. Outsiders always comment how confusing this must be but for me, growing up surrounded on all side by grown ups who considered themselves “immediate family”, it helped orient who fit where in the giant constellation of our tribe!

In Iceland everyone is called by their first name since we do not have last names. Sometimes we add the middle name if we want to distinguish which Jón we are talking about :) I find this practice very egalitarian and I think it has an effect on the whole culture of just feeling equal to one another despite age or class. Even the president is called by their first name!

I grew up in Finland and addressed adults simply by their first name, including teachers, aunts, uncles, neighbors – basically just everyone. But, the other half of my family is German, thus for that part of the family I used (and still use) more formal names; “aunt Anna” and “uncle Peter”, “Mrs. Müller”.

Interestingly, my kids do the same – but only for the generation of their grandparents and grandaunts and -uncles. For everyone in our, their parents, generation they use just the first name regardless of the cultural context.

I am a Brazilian living in Germany for 17+ years. In Brasil we call the adults, medical doctors and people we don’t know with Mrs / Mr / Dr and their first names, like Dr. Joana ;) Here in Germany is always the last name, even people we know for years but are not “friends” with. If you pay attention of the names of brazilian players (soccer players, basketball players and so on) in their tricots you will see that it is always their first name (Neymar, Romário, Roberto Carlos) or a nickname (Pelé, Zico, Pato). The German players always have their family name in the tricots.

It may be because my parents were both raised in Texas, but we were taught to call everyone Mr. and Ms., though we did usually use first names, unless it was school teachers, then we used their last names. I never called anyone by their first name without a title in front of it until I started going to youth group and the youth pastors wife insisted I call her Krystal, not Miss Krystal. Now that I’m older I usually just use people’s first names, though sometimes I do slip back into it. When I’m teaching the younger kids at church though, I always call myself Miss Sarah and they usually go with it.

Sometimes kids just don’t know what you are. When I was a nanny, a little 5 year old earnestly asked me, “Are you a lady or a girl?” So cute!

my husband, zach, is a rabbi in the west village.. the kids in the congregation adore him and lovingly refer to him as ‘rabbi zach’ versus ‘rabbi fredman’. i love the combo as a way to honor his place in their lives as teacher and friend. growing up, it was also mrs. this and rabbi that. but it was the midwest and close to forty years ago.

My kid calls my good friends Mama Jess and Papa Shawn because they’re the parents of her friends. Same with all our neighbors: Papa Jason, Mama Amy, etc..
If they’re not parents they’re Mr. Jim, Miss Courtney, etc..

Growing up, I used all first names for my friends’ parents. Partly I think because I had a pretty small circle of friends and all our families were close. We were taught to refer to someone as “Mr.” or “Mrs.” until they told us otherwise. Or to simply ask, “what would you like me to call you?” I think my husband and I will teach our daughter the same thing. It just makes so much sense to ask people what they would like to be called!

When my kids were young, what they called adults depended on the situation. By title for some, first name for others always starting out with the title unless the adult says otherwise. As adults, (last I knew), they use the same rule.

My kids call generally call the parents of their friends and preschool teachers by their first names. In preschool that worked for me, too, but now that my daughter is in Kindergarten, I have this weird thing where I can’t call teachers/administrators by their first names. It seems like all other parents do, and they always introduce themselves to parents with their first names and sign emails with their first names. But I always address them as Mr./Ms./Dr. I’m the vice president of the parent organization and feel like I should probably use their first names by now, but I just can’t! For reference, I grew up in the Midwest and live in California now.

I’m from Italy where I grew up calling my aunts and uncles ‘Zio/Zia + first name’ while family friends would be addressed by their first names, unless they were quite old, then we would use ‘Signor/Signora + first name’.
I now live in Trinidad and Tobago where no matter whether you are related by blood or not, if you are an adult you automatically become ‘Uncle/Auntie + first name’. It’s used as a sign of respect and although at first it felt strange to me, now I kinda like it and makes me feel closer to the many ‘children’ I have around me :)

I’m Portuguese and we actually use 2 different pronouns for the english word “you” according to the degree of formality and also the use of the verb changes for each one (I know, this is weird for english speakers… and even Brazilians for that matter!). So normally we use “tu” for more casual relationships (like friends and colleagues, spouses, close family, children, etc.) and “você” which is more formal (for older people, adults that you don’t know well, interactions in business/services/stores, etc).
Another difference here is that it’s not so common to refer to people by their surname, with the exception of some people for whom their family name becomes a sort of nickname (this happens mostly with men). We usually use the first name plus the second or the last when you need do differentiate between 2 people with the same first name.
But when I was little, calling adults was more formal too! We usually used Dona or Senhora before the first name for women (regardless if married or single) and Senhor for men. Now I think most kids call known adults (like uncles, grandparents, and their parents friends) by their first name only and talk to them the same way as they talk to their parents (“tu”). I guess most people are just not so uptight about that kind of thing anymore and the concept of respect has changed. I sure wouldn’t want any kid calling me Dona Sofia! It would make me feel ancient.

I call some of my best friend’s parents Mr&Mrs, but some I use their first name. My daughter calls most of my friends by their names, some of my parent’s friends by nicknames “aunt so-and-so”, her aunts and uncles by little nicknames of their name. It usually depends on the situation and relationship to the person, but mostly we’re pretty relaxed about names.

I don’t have any kids, but I can say that I have definitely noticed a difference between me and my parents, and even between my parents themselves. Growing up, I typically called people by whatever they asked me to call them. Some neighbors I called by their first names, some of my parents’ friends I called Mr. and Mrs., some I had nicknames for. I prefer for people to call me by my first name no matter what. Ms. or Miss freaks me out. My dad was much more formal and preferred for kids to call him Mr., but my mom always insisted on her first name. So interesting how it can vary from generation to generation and with personal differences.

My parents are from California (where I was born & lived as a little kid) and we moved to the Midwest when I was eight. Where I lived in California, friends’ parents & other adults (including many elementary school teachers) went by their first names. I remember (after moving to the Midwest) calling somebody from church by her first name, which is what my parents always called her. I realized later that maybe I should have used “Mrs.” and was mortified.

My girls call my friends by their first names….but that seems to be a reflection of the times. I work in a large company where I’m sure 50 years ago Mr and Mrs was used, but now everyone from the cleaning staff to the CEO is addressed by their first name.
As for the Aunt and Uncle comments, I not only called my mom’s siblings Aunt Betty and Uncle Roger, but their child was always Cousin David. Yes my cousin had a title too, and to this day I still call him Cousin David. He’s 65!

In Vermont, children call their teachers by their first names. It works very well.

This is a challenge for me as a foreign mom as well as for us as a bilingual family. We are in Germany and the kids call many adults by their first names. Actually, even after 5 years here I am not always 100% sure who gets the first name treatment from our kids and who gets Herr/Frau. But as a Southerner, I am not crazy about the whole kids calling adults by their first names unless we are really close. So I have separated it by language: when we speak German, the kids say first name or Herr/Frau Lastname, but when we are around English speakers, they say Miss or Mr First name. It’s working for now, anyway.