What do you like to be called?

As long as I can remember, I was taught to show respect to adults by addressing them by their surname. Whether it was a man or a woman, young or old, I was always told that I should always say Mr. This, or Mrs. That, Officer Joe, or Dr. Who (you get the idea). Of course to be respectful to someone you didn't know, you were expected to say Sir or Ma'am. To further complicate the matter, as adults you must consider how someone wishes to be addressed. For example, you tell some one "Yes, Sir" and you might get a response of "Don't call me sir, it makes me feel old", or "Good afternoon Mr. Stevens". To which he might reply, "Mr. Stevens was my father, call me Ray". Now it seems that what used to be undesireable, is now expected, such as "Hello Bill, how's your day?" is now sometimes heard as, "Hello Richardson, how's your day?" It's not even good to call a colleague by their full first name like William, to paraphrase from Sheryl Crow, "It's Bill, or Billy, or Mac, or Buddy..." So what is the right way to address people? I personally like to be called by my first name. Mr. Webb is okay, but just Webb isn't. Of course there is the whole aspect of nicknames spanning everything from the cute familial names to the down right offensive and ignorant. Would it be better to just not worry about names at all? What kind of a society would that turn out to be? Maybe we should simply be referred to by a number. Why not, governments have been doing it for years when it comes to taxes, passports and social security. The DMV gives you number that uniquely identifies you from the next person, and services, banks, credit cards, clubs and organizations among many others assign a unique account number that identifies you to them. Do they really care how you like to be addressed? Of course there are the employee numbers that your company gives you and then there are the various aliases online that each of us maintain. So who are we really? Are we merely a physical manifestation of a self appointed, company generated, government assigned, or club initiated number, name, or reference? Let us not forget those individuals that choose to officially change their names, to better suit his/her needs. One of the more rediculous in my opinion is the pop rock musician, Prince, or is it the artist formerly known as prince, or is it some unpronounceable symbol, or is it something else? Actors and actresses change their given names because their agent told them it would flow better, or writers create a pen name because it would be more memorable. You know, as I think about this more, this whole issue is much more complex than even I first imagined. I originally thought that a name is a name is a name, but it is much more than that. So...what do YOU like to be called? "You can call me flower if you want to, I don't mind."