Zefram Cochrane of Alpha Centuri

Did they continue calling him "Mister Cochrane" after they discovered his first name?

 

THey seem to quickly switch to just calling him "Cochrane."

In the 23rd century it might be the summit of politeness to call people sole by their family name. Kirk mostly call Doctor Daystrom simply "Daystrom."

 

Yes. Of the 16 occurrences of "Mister Cochrane" in the episode, 9 of them are after he reveals his first name.

 

Non-canon though this may be, I seem to remember some novelverse human characters who literally have no first name, although I'm not sure how that would "really" work. (I mean, how do their families talk to each other at home? "Hey, you"? )

Perhaps this is so common that a lot of people instinctively call others (even those who have both names) by their last.

 

Hmm. I wonder if that was more for consistency than anything else. It might be confusing for some viewers if they suddenly switched to "Doctor Cochrane." Maybe Gene Coon just decided it'd be better to stick with "Mister" throughout.

You, know, you don't really address people IRL by name as often as folks do on TV & in the movies.

I ran into my friend Tom on Friday night after not seeing him for a few weeks. We didn't say, "Hi, Tom" and "Hi, John." It was "Hey, buddy" and "Hey, pal." I doubt we used each other's names in direct address to each other for the whole rest of the evening.

I'll give you "Mom" and "Dad" though. I do use those a lot.

 

This was actually quite common in movies, tv, and British public school until the 70s or so.

 

No doubt Spock holds a doctorate or three as well, but nobody addresses him as Doctor Spock...

In turn, Spock is the only one to insist on "Doctor McCoy". But that's basically because so few people actually talk to McCoy: the other one just calls him "Bones", while instances of somebody like Uhura or Chekov shrieking "Oh, Doctor!" are quite rare.

Probably our soldier heroes are so accustomed to addressing people by their rank that they find themselves a bit at loss with civilians and their titles... A Doctor of Archaeology or a Transporter Handyman (Uneducated) alike can be called Lieutenant if that is her rank, but if she doesn't hold rank, then the military form would call for using the surname only.

Timo Saloniemi

 

One of the ways they modernized Holmes and Watson on the BBC's Sherlock was by having them address each other by their first names.