“Morgan?” the voice on the other end of the line asked when I answered the phone.
I thought it was a friend, or perhaps my dad. “Yes?” I answered.
“This is Bill from AT&T. I have a special offer for you.” Bill had telephone service to sell me, or perhaps it was a credit card. I told Bill I already had a telephone and a credit card. I hung up.
That afternoon I went to visit a friend. Her doorman rang her apartment, “Amy? Morgan is here to see you.”
Later in the evening we went to supper at Isabellaís and were served by “Becky,” an aspiring singer, as it turned out. She wants to be the next Jewel . . . or was it Madonna? The receipt came with a note from Becky that read, “Thanks Morgan!!” Hers was that sort of two-exclamation point personality.
These are but a few examples that practically everyone in New York is on a first name basis with me. Merchants, doormen, waitresses, solicitors, strangers and small children all call me ìMorgan.î Even Margaret Trinkle, the crossing guard at 78th and York, calls me “sweetheart’ (she’d call me by my first name, I feel certain, if she could remember it.).
I should point out here that I am not royalty or a new rock star or an intern. Nor do I look like a minor. I’m well into “mister” territory, having at 27, already lost a goodly amount of hair. My driver’s license lists “Murphy” as my surname and come to think of it, about the only time I’ve ever been called “Mr. Murphy” here in New York, the event was commemorated with a $85 speeding ticket. Granted, my laundry man calls me “Missa Marpy,” but that’s because I’ve never told him my first name.
Is it too much to expect that people I don’t know call me “Mister Murphy?” Surnames add a bit of privacy. They give the first names intimacy. Oneís name helps a fellow stand straighter, like a shoeshine or a starched shirt. Do you really want AMEX calling you by the same name your mother does?
Growing up, the use of first names was restricted to siblings, cousins, close friends, minors, and married persons. My father was ìMr. Murphyî when he was my age. So was my grandfather. My grandmother has been Mrs. Murphy since she married my grandfather, and no one, I mean nobody, calls her “Edwina.” Not even Mr. Murphy.
But now people prefer to be called by their first name. It makes them feel younger, like listening to Phish or piercing a body part. “Mr. Taylor?” asked a friend of mine who is a teacher, “that’s my dad!”
It’s Biblical, in a sense. All the good guys in the Bible are on a first name basis with each other, and we never learn their surnames. Meanwhile Pontius Pilot, Julius Caesar, and Judas Iscariot will be remembered forever as jerks that have a last name.
Last names can be treacherous