Last-Name Basis/Literature: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
Examples for [[Last-Name Basis]] in [[Literature
* Nymphadora Tonks in ''[[Harry Potter]]'' is a rare female example; she demands that people call her Tonks and not her first name. You can see her point. Her parents call her Dora, and after she gets married, so does her husband. The book doesn't address whether or not she took her husband's last name; Harry/The Narrator still thinks of her as "Tonks."
** Lupin still calls her that too ("Tonks is going to have a baby"), though he also uses "Dora" on occasion.
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** Pansy Parkinson is a weird exception. As the [[Alpha Bitch]], Harry clearly has no liking for her, but the narrator keeps calling Pansy by her first name rather than her last, which is something he does to Malfoy - another character he dislikes. The only known character that calls Pansy by her last name is Hermione. However, Harry never talks to Pansy or mentions her in dialogue, so we don't know how he would refer to her outside his head.
** Insofar as it applies to fellow students at Hogwarts, that's really just a Public School (Americans: read 'private, fee-paying school') thing, probably informed by all those other books set in boarding schools.
** In ''[[
** Usually, "Harry" refers to the character in specific, while "Potter" refers to the franchise as a whole.
* To the very end of the ''[[Sherlock Holmes]]'' canon, despite being best friends and living through years (even decades) of perilous adventures together, Holmes and Watson still use each other's last names, but this would be absolutely [[Truth in Television]] for Englishmen of their period and class. Only Holmes' brother Mycroft ever uses his first name.
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** [[Subverted]] in the ''[[Sherlock]]'' series. They're not "Holmes" and "Watson", they're "Sherlock" and "John". It's the 21st century. Move on. Not that it would be uncommon to stick with the old convention in the present century of course.
* In ''[[Fahrenheit 451]]'', protagonist Guy Montag is referred to solely as Montag in the narrative and more or less everyone else, only addressed as Guy by his wife Mildred and once or twice by his boss Captain Beatty (Clarisse calls him 'Mr Montag').
* In ''[[Amelia Peabody|The Amelia Peabody Mysteries]]'', Amelia and her husband Radcliffe Emerson fondly refer to each other by their last names, in memory of their rather tumultuous courtship.
* In [[Dan Abnett]]'s ''[[Gaunt's Ghosts]]'' novels, [[Last-Name Basis]] is normal. First names are seldom even given in the text. Exceptions grow as the series go on, and are generally significiant.
** Technically, every important character except Bragg has a first name given; it's just that the only characters who are ever referred to by their first names with any frequency are Gaunt, Corbec, and Milo.
* In ''[[The Great Gatsby]]'', the character Jay Gatsby is almost always refered to as Gatsby. Although, to be fair, nobody really knows anything about him.
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* [[Sarah Waters]] has a very neat trick in ''Affinity'', which is made up of two diaries. In the main narrative, {{spoiler|the protagonist sometimes refers to her maid Vigers.}} In the other, {{spoiler|mention is made of a character called [[First-Name Basis|Ruth]].}} They are in fact the same person. The reader only discovers this in the very last pages, and it has terrible consequences.
* After an embarassing incident involving the use of the nickname "Carrots" and a smashed slate over his head, [[Anne of Green Gables|Gilbert Blythe]] is referred to almost exclusively as "Mr. Blythe" almost by Anne Shirley. When she's not snubbing or ignoring him, that is. This goes on for years until they finally become friends, at which point she takes to calling him "Gil".
* In ''[[A Series of Unfortunate Events]]'', friend of the family Mr. Poe is referred to as Mr. Poe for the entire run, which is justified as it is a somewhat Victorian setting and the Baudelaires are polite children. This is emphasized during ''[[
* ''[[Animorphs]]'' has Chapman. His first name,Hendrick, pops up a time or two, mostly in The Andalite Chronicles, but rarely in the regular books.
* Played with in ''[[Catch-22]]''. [[Repetitive Name|Major Major]]<ref>full name Major Major Major, promoted to the rank of Major due to a computer error</ref> earns the rest of his squadron's dislike after being promoted to squadron commander. He fails to earn back their respect, partly because he can't ask to be [[First-Name Basis|addressed casually]] without invoking [[Last-Name Basis]] or his rank.
** Major Major eventually starts authorizing documents (his only job as squadron commander) with the fake signature "Washington Irving" to make the job less monotonous. When he gets bored of that, he switches to "Irving Washington."
* Appears in ''[[Jeeves and Wooster (novel)|Jeeves and Wooster]]'' according to the time frame. As a servant, Jeeves is referred to simply as "Jeeves" by just about everybody (Bertie was quite jarred to find out that Jeeves even had a first name), and he calls his master "Mr. Wooster". Meanwhile, acquaintances refer to Bertie as "Wooster", but close friends and family members use his first name.
* In [[C. J. Cherryh]]'s ''Merovingen Nights'' [[Shared Universe]] series, Altair Jones and Thomas Mondragon always and only call each other by their last names. They've been lovers since the first book, but even in the final pages of the very last story, following a [[Big Damn Kiss]] as they escape the city, it's still "Jones" and "Mondragon."
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