Well, believe as you wish. It works for you, and we have to be comfortable in our own skin or stripes as the case may be. I find it contrived and disingenuos, and would be extremely uncomfortable. How do your partners react? If they don't follow suit, do they look like crabby appleton?

If I were a player, I'd find it odd that some stranger wants to memorize my entire team's first names.

Hey, what do I know, the soccer guy mentioned in the thread swears by it.

A little tough with the soccer names "Helmut or Olga fetch me the ball please"

"Klaus, swearing at me is verboten"

What do you call the wimmen coaches? Hon?

Ouch!

Sweetie?

If you introduce yourself at the pregame, how can you be upset when they call you by name? I have no problem being called by my first name, in fact my baseball crew insists on being called by our first names and we call coaches by their first names. I don't understand why it would be an issue.

I had a job one time where there was one guy who called all the female co-workers "Hon". About my second day, I started calling him "Babe". The first time, he literally stopped cold in his tracks and dropped his paper and pencil. He said, "What did you say?" I said, "I'll get right to it, Babe" He said (seriously, btw) , "I'm not your babe." I said, "No, but I thought since you called me 'Hon' that you were one of those that liked to use endearments in your conversation." He shook his head and walked away.

But he never called anyone that again -- at least not in the office.