As my sister and to-be brother in law have done name posts, here's my little diddy. Not so much on my name but the implied meaning of how it is signed in emails and other documentation.
- First name only, abbreviated to "Chris": friendly, I likely know you. Family gets this. Ironically, I am told my mother did not want people to call me this; my aunt assured her that this was going to be the way it was. And it was.
- Full first name: reserved for letters to people I don't know, generally for billing or account purposes.
- Full first name + last name: again, billing purposes, similar to full first name. Correspondence with companies is often done like this.
- Full first name + middle initial + last name: This is my academic way to put my name to differentiate it from the others with the same first + last name. All of my published papers should be this way. I'll use this on some company presentations as my boss sometimes does not want the extra initials (below).
- Full first + full middle + last name: Only place this is used is Social Security, wedding certificate, important financial records, and on the spine of my thesis.
- Fill first + middle initial + last name + Ph.D.: OK, this is the "listen to me you idiot" way. Used extensively in conversations with suppliers and people inside the company who I need to impress things upon. I generally get a good response time with this one. Prospective application will be for people in the school system who think they are (insert adjective here) than me and can tell me what to do with my kid.
- Dr. + First name + middle initial + last name: I feel really wierd about this one. Generally the "Dr." makes people assume you can deliver their baby. M.D.'s don't like non-M.D.'s using "Dr." Oh well. I do sometimes as it is fun to get called "doctor."
The only one (small) gripe I have about my name is that "Christopher" generally gets cut to "Christophe" or (Heaven forgive me) "Christ" in web forms. I always flinch at those.
