first-name

Denominal verb of first name.

first-name (third-person singular simple present first-names, present participle first-naming, simple past and past participle first-named)

1. (rare) To address (someone) by first name.

   Synonym: Christian-name

   Coordinate term: last-name

   • 1982, Elaine Chaika, “Style of speech”, in Language: The Social Mirror, Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House Publishers, Inc., →ISBN, sections 18 (Summons, greetings, address) and 21 (The United States, a case in point), pages 46–48:

     Physicians are first-named only by close family, friends, and colleagues in the United States. First-naming has extended itself to one group who formerly were sacrosanct: teachers and professors. Since it is, indeed, a privileged patient who first-names his or her physician, one cannot help feeling, in many such instances, that this is a way of affirming special status.

   • 1983 September, Peter H 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, pages 578–579:

     Most adults are in the habit of addressing children, menial workers and the disadvantaged by their first names. As onerous as this arrogation may appear, it is not nearly as malignant as the present custom of first-naming women, minorities and the elderly, particularly if they happen to be ill. The most useful test of whether unsought informality presents problems is this: when practitioners feel comfortable being first-named by their patients.

   • 2016, Sarah Conrad Sours, “Mad Manners: Courtesy, Conflict, and Social Change”, in Ann W Duncan, Jacob L 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:

     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.