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Roger Fowler, he of the famed Guide to Modern English Usage, gave the following example of when the correct use of language is determined not by the rules of language but by the culture. (‘Understanding Language: An Introduction to Linguistics’, chap. 10; p. 215 in my edition.)

A similar situation controls choice of what version of a person's name you address him by: first name alone (FN) or title plus last name (TLN): Bill versus Dr Smith. True to the conventions of power, I have addressed the secretaries who work in my Department as Carol, Jane, Linda, etc. from the moment of their employment; they automatically reciprocate with Mr Fowler. For new members of academic staff, the rules are different: I call them Bill, Colin, etc., and that is a gesture of solidarity –­they are expected to reciprocate with Roger. But a new lecturer at a junior level, addressed by FN not by me but by a senior professor, might be forgiven for being in a quandary over this – does he reply with FN or with TLN? If the junior teacher misinterprets an expression of power as an expression of intimacy, calling the professor FN when TLN is expected, he will be rebuffed: the professor can announce the distance by reverting to the formal TLN in addressing the new man.

Writing in 1974, Fowler notes that the mapping from social position to choice of address, in this as well as in the tu/vous distinction English lacks, has noticeably changed after the rise of egalitarianism. As late as the 1950's, it was still common for men to call each other, even if they were very close friends, by last name alone (LN), and to call all ladies other than immediate family, household staff, and one's fiancée by TLN. Throughout the whole of the 20th Century, the use of FN for friends was on the rise, but there was a relatively sudden change, after the end of the fifties, to want to appear pally with one's subordinates: the use of “Sir” for one's seniors disappeared, and the use of FN came to the fore.

As Fowler mentions, reverting to TLN can be a rebuff, a statement of distance or formality. As the use of FN even for bosses and people you don't know well has spread, TLN has come to be excessively formal. It has gone so far I think the status has even inverted: only my closest friends do I call occasionally by TLN, as with them the intimacy and solidarity once signalled by FN is already understood. (Sometimes I go all out and append the postnominal matter as well: it is a genial show of extreme familiarity because I know the correct form, something a casual acquaintance would not. As The Prisoner once remarked, “Old friends don't need names.”) Were I to call one of my work colleagues by TLN, I would leave him wondering what he has done to upset me. People who call me up trying to sell things over the phone, or other tradespeople I might only speak to once or twice, are often quite astounded if I give my name as “Mr. Hulme”: they are used to being given FN.

This is, of course, only a broad observation of the declining acceptability of TLN and LN, and there are some special cases. Perhaps the most common is when there is a clash of first names within a group of friends or colleagues, and the clashing people fall back to LN or to some nickname. Friendly nicknames are often derived from last names, and are still widely used in schools as an alternative to FN for a sign of solidarity between pupils, who are usually addressed LN by their teachers, even today. Nickname is then more familiar than LN, but LN expresses the power relationship.

Another special case is people with honorific titles. Any Yes Minister fans will be familiar with Sir Humphrey, but it is easy to forget that Bernard Woolley also has a knighthood, but doesn't get addressed by it because he is the junior of the other characters. A similar effect occurs with TV doctors on phone-ins and such, who might be introduced as “Dr. Roger Fowler, author of ‘Understanding Language’”, and then called “Dr. Roger” throughout as a show of familiarity. Thus, in increasing order of formality, we have FN, TFN, and TLN.

As TLN has become more and more formal through disuse, there has arisen a new niche where you don't feel comfortable calling someone by FN or TFN, but where no strict subordinate-superordinate relationship exists. This is vaguely parallel to the use of “-san” or even “-sama” amongst friends in Japanese, though I am given to understand that “-sama” is dying out except when used ironically. The niche is often filled by title plus last initial (TLI), as in Dr. D, which can be seen as an intermediate form of address, especially when honorific titles are in effect.

The whole set of initials, the form usually reserved for formal minutes, has found an additional use in business circles. It is used when naming a third party, usually an important third party such as a high-up manager or a decision-maker from another company, when the speaker wants to suggest to the listener that the speaker knows the third party much better than the listener, maybe even suggesting that the speaker would address the third party FN to his face. Speakers who are less sure of their relationship to the third party tend to use TLI or full name, though full name is often used sort-of by accident even for familiar third parties, if one refers to a third party, realises that the forename is ambiguous to the listener, and then has to add last name as an afterthought.

One last, and rare, use I will comment on is the use of full name for telling people off. Schoolchildren trying to get each other into trouble, and nagging wives, mothers, and fathers (and maybe husbands, but I can't recall any examples right now) in particular are famed for using the listener's full name, which works better if the listener has a good crop of middle names. I don't know why this form of address should be so often used in this situation, but perhaps it is related to the old idea that knowing someone's name is a form of power over them.

It might be said that the trend in the last century towards addressing almost everyone by their first name makes social situations much easier, because you don't need to think about how well you know them. But this is belied by the frequency with which authors have their characters insist on being called by TLN rather than LN, or vice-versa, or FN rather than “Sir,” or vice-versa, as a short-hand way of building up their character, as genial, formal, egalitarian, conservative, flexible, &c. In fact, having a wide choice of markers for familiarity and status serves as a short, simple, and oft-repeated reminder of social standings and intimacy/solidarity relationships. Removing these reminders from everyday speech merely redesignates the question of how well one knows one's interlocutor as something that has to be considered for every utterance, making it harder to establish and maintain a common understanding of seniority, and easier to make a misjudgement of the excessively complicated rules of play.