Please excuse the ignorance of a non-USA.

In all other USA elections, I’ve noticed that the candidates are referred to by their last names. Harris, however, is referred to as Kamala by both the opposing party (which make sense, if the idea was to disrespect) as well as by her own party (which confounds me). Why is Harris different?

Am I the one being disrespectful by referring to her by her last name (am I the one in the wrong)? If so, I’ll start (kind of late, I’m gathering) referring to her by her first name.

It’s been bothering me each time I see something about “Trump vs. Kamala”. I finally broke down and asked.

Edit: thanks everyone! I’m glad I wasn’t offensive :) and your explanations make sense. I will continue to use last names, since I find it more respectful, (but still don’t hold first name usage against anyone who chooses to haha) until asked otherwise.

  • zeppo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11·
    9 days ago

    Some people speculate it’s the gender difference, like how HRC was typically called Hillary. I’m not sure though. I call her Harris but a lot of people thought Kamala was better since it’s a more unique name. Myself, I don’t think she needs that to have greater personal appeal and saying Harris would have helped make her seem more presidential. Having a foreign or Black sounding name is not really an advantage with the voters she needed to court, either. Of course, everything about this election incredibly stupid anyway so who cares at this point.

    • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
      2·
      9 days ago

      I called Hillary “Hillary”, but that’s to distinguish her from Bill Clinton, who I called “Clinton”.

      Honestly, you have to be a very commonly-used name before I’m going to use a single name for general purposes at all rather than a full name, so the set of people who have the chance to get into the “one name club” is very small.

  • UnhingedFridge@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    9 days ago

    The same thing happened with Hillary, and that may be due to her husband’s presidency, though there may be something to it being gender related - albeit we can’t say that’s the case due to the incredibly small sample size. It could have simply been her choice, noting that a lot of her merch went with ,la.

    Good question though.

  • jet@hackertalks.comEnglish
    4·
    9 days ago

    Uniqueness. How common is the name.

    Lots of people are named Donald. Not many people are named Kamala

    Though in some circumstances Trump has been referred to as " the Donald "

  • snooggums@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    9 days ago

    For campaiging, Republicans went with last name for the same reason the Trump organization just goes by his last name, which is the common use of last names in military, sports, and business settings. Dems tried to go personable with a first name, like they have in the past with Hillary & Bernie. Obama went by last name for the same reason as Trump, manly projection while Biden tends to favor Joe to be personable.

    Basically strong person vs personable person branding.

  • neidu3@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    1·
    9 days ago

    Personally, I do it because trumps last name is more rare/recognizable than his first. With her it’s the other way around. It’s less ambiguous that way.

    As a tangent, I do think a presidential race between Donald Duck and Ed Harris would be less mentally taxing.