Carly Buxton, PhD

I know it’s frowned upon to express any sort of opinion when a friend or family member is starting to consider names for a new baby, but when I find myself in these conversations, there’s a two-cent bit that I feel it is my obligation to share:

Just let your baby go by their first name.

From the moment I was born, I was called “Carly,” a quaint nod to my parents’ favorite 1980s singer, but you’ll not find “Carly” anywhere on my birth certificate, social security card, or any other important place that gets checked a million times for verification in our perpetual identify yourself! dystopia. I was born Anne Carlton Brown. Yep. I don’t even go by my middle name, but rather a diminutive of my middle name. And then I got married and added yet another name: Buxton. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that my name causes at least 1 hour of wasted time per month sorting out various levels of intricate confusion with customer service reps, at medical facilities, with insurance, or even with (my fave!) the IRS.

It also embitters me toward companies that are trying—through personalization tokens—to sound friendly with me. So many emails, texts, and newsletters start with: “Hey, Anne!” as if we are buddies, and yet… you seem to know me as much as a substitute teacher popping into the classroom for the first time. I’m used to it, but it irks me.

As a product designer or UX writer, there are steps you can take to ensure that other I-don’t-go-by-my-first-namers like myself do not feel this cringe each time you try to tap us on the shoulder with a coupon, an e-digest, or whatever else you’re peddling now.

And it’s not just about Southern gals whose parents fancied themselves creative namers. Think of all the people you know who prefer to be called something other than the letters printed on their passport: those who have chosen nicknames because everyone butchers the pronunciation of their first name, transgender folks who never want to hear their dead name again, and on and on.

So, what can a company do?

1. Begin by asking yourself: do we truly need the customer’s legal name? Are we remitting payment? Do we have a burden of verifying this person’s identity? Is there literally any reason why you need to care what this person’s birth name is? For many consumer businesses, the answer here will be a hard no. Sure, FAA-regulated JetBlue needs to have my passport first name, but that sonic dermaplaner I ordered the other day from Michael Todd Beauty does not need to check my license like a bouncer before letting the mail carrier toss the box against my front stoop. If the answer for your company is “no” on this, there are a couple of easy solutions:

a)  Rather than “First Name” in your info collection form, cue for “Preferred First Name”

b) Or, my personal favorite: A casual “What should we call you?” followed by a Name box

Think which choice here better aligns with your brand voice, and make the change on your typeform straight away.

2. BUT maybe you need that legal name as a company collecting information from users. If that’s the case, there are still ways to address your client by their preferred name in subsequent communications, and it doesn’t take much effort.

You could drop personalization tokens entirely. Am I more likely to engage with an email that calls out to me with a “Dear Anne” than a “Dear Apple Customer” or “Dear American Airliner” (or other company demonym)? No.

If you remain stuck on personalization, though, the answer here is still easy: just add an optional “Nickname” box directly after you collect their name information, or frame it as a more informal “What should we call you?” with preferred first name as the pre-filled cue text in gray. Then ensure that your CRM has a token for Preferred Name, and that when you build personalized emails, labels, etc., you’re populating with that information. Sure, you might find yourself mailing a box to a CaptainAwesome DeMarco, but trust my experience here: if the surname is correct, it gets delivered. And you’ve made a LOT of non-first-namers happy—and heck, you’ve brought a smile to CaptainAwesome’s face, too. It’s not up to us as a brand what our customers want to be called, but we can respect them by asking for and using preferred names.