USE OF CHRISTIAN NAMES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 717, 10 April 1953, Page 5

USE OF CHRISTIAN NAMES

Sir,-Contemporary social forms and usages have a certain importance, and it was refreshing to find such an unusual topic discussed in your interesting editorial. Without claiming any special knowledge I would like to hazard one guess as to why the English practice of equals addressing each other by surname is rarely followed in New Zealand. I say at once that I think the English practice a good one. It is democratic and makes for ease of social intercourse. So also the use of "Sir" which can be used equally to a stranger or to the King and at one time, as readers of Boswell well know, was in use among friends. I believe the disuse here and in Australia and the U.S.A. is due to our mixed origins. It is clear for instance that the English practice has never been generally followed in Ireland. Reference to the numerous memoirs of members of the Irish Bar over the last hundred years shows that the members commonly addressed each other by Christian name. Members of a circuit were admittedly a close-knit community and lived together while travelling, but this is not enough to explain it. I do not think the surname use has ever obtained in England itself in the lower middle classes and lower ranks. Ian Hay says something about this somewhere, In Continental countries the use of surnames is unnecessary among acquaintances as other forms are applicable. The Spanish form of speaking to an acquaintance-is to use the third person, "Usted" (ie, "You") is a contraction of the Spanish for "Your Honour." I seem to. have heard that -in Poland there is a custom of addressing

an acquaintance as "Pan," i.e,, fellows countryman, but in the Slav countries it is common, if we are to believe Russian writers, to address by the full Christian names and muename;’ which seems to us prolix. Is there, I wonder, some Gidines he which these matters are discussed?

INQUIRER

(Wellington)