I work in politics. In public and in front of colleagues, I refer to people by title -- "Representative Smith," "Senator Jones," "Director Crane." In private, I call them by their first name, usually, if I have that type of relationship with them. If I don't, I still go by title. When I worked on a campaign for governor, the candidate, who was our state's attorney general at the time, insisted we call her by her first name, which we did. The day after the election, we all stopped calling her that and started calling her "Governor-elect" and then Governor after she was sworn in. Especially in public. She was Michigan's first female governor, and part of her cachet was she seemed like your neighbor. When people would meet her at events, they would always call her "Jennifer" because she seemed so familiar to them. She didn't mind. But we, her staff, minded. We never publicly corrected people, but if asked by someone, I would always say you should address her as Governor Granholm.

I work as a school social worker where the communication is in sign language. My name is a combination of a "J" for Jennifer and the sign for social worker. There are always a double set of names to remember, the sign names and the English names. The general rule in the deaf community is that your sign name must be given to you by a deaf person. Names generally reflect the most dominating aspect of a person, such as in my case, I am the only social worker. But if someone has long curly hair, the name might be signing their initials in a downward swirl by the head. One teacher talks a lot and her sign is her first initial over her mouth. I like that the way of addressing contains not just the name but also the most striking characteristic about a person. It helps to have that double reference.