There Is No Surname in Daily Use and There Is a Whole Vocabulary of Respect
You will be known by one name, addressed by a title, and the title changes with the person's age and their relationship to you.
My business card said David Miller and I watched a Thai man read it, put it down, and address the woman next to me as if I were not in the conversation at all. Not unfriendly. Just, formally, not present.
He was not being rude. There was simply no way for him to address me.
Last verified 18 August 2026.
You have one name, not two
Thai names are structured given name, optional middle name, surname, where the surname is usually a family name and the given name is what everybody actually uses. A Thai national ID card and a formal document will show all of it. Everything else is the first name.
So if you are given a Thai nickname, that is your name, and using the surname on a business card is a small signal that you have not noticed how the system works. The fix is trivial: one name on the card.
Nicknames are extremely common and often unavoidable. Thai nicknames are usually a shortened or altered version of the formal name, and the pattern is so regular you can guess a lot of them. Names ending in chai or chok and ai and ook are common nicknames for men, and fah and nung and ing for women.
The title matters more than the name
This is the part that is genuinely difficult, because the correct address depends on age, status and relationship, and getting it wrong is noticeable.
Khun, Mr / Ms is the universal polite title, gender-neutral, and it is safe for anybody you do not know well. It is the right default and it is never wrong.
Nai, younger man. Mae, younger woman. Chai, older man. Nung, older woman. These are used among people who know each other, and using them is a sign of being included rather than remaining outside.
Nong, younger person of either gender. Pi, older sister. Nan, older brother. These are not merely polite forms. They are the sibling vocabulary, and you can use them for people you have become close to. A Thai person will tell you to use nong and it is a genuine gesture of warmth.
Phra, for a monk, which is a title rather than a name, and you never use a monk's personal name at all.
And Luang, for senior monastic ranks and for respected elderly people, which carries considerably more weight than Khun and should be used carefully.
There is also a particle, huu, added to names for extra deference, which has no English equivalent and which you will hear constantly in speech and can safely ignore when speaking yourself.
What not to do
Do not call somebody older by their given name with no title, especially in a first meeting and especially if they are in any kind of professional or official position. In English this is a small informality. In Thai it can read as presumptuous or even as an attempt at intimacy you have not earned.
Do not use a first name alone with a stranger in a formal setting. Khun plus the name is the safe construction and it is not cold, it is polite.
Do not worry excessively about it. Nobody is offended by a foreigner's title usage. Foreigners are given enormous latitude on this. Getting it slightly wrong is charming rather than offensive, and Thai people will correct you cheerfully, which is how you learn it.
The one that genuinely surprises people: days of the week
Thai children are commonly named after the day they were born, and the names are strange in translation and quite beautiful in Thai.
Sunday is aochan or jan, which means the wheel or the vehicle of the sun chariot. Monday is jan or moon, meaning a full moon. Tuesday is arn, meaning a billy goat. Wednesday is wan, meaning a water buffalo, and Thursday phu, a fish. Friday cha, a colour, and Saturday na, the sun of the evening.
So somebody called Somsak may be named after a goat, which sounds odd until you understand that the older generation of Thai names is full of farm animals and celestial bodies, and the modern generation is full of virtues and abstractions instead. Both are meaningful; the tradition just changed its subject matter.
Getting it right in a business context
Use Khun plus the given name, and put the position after the name where relevant. That construction is the one that works in every professional situation and it requires no special knowledge.
On a business card, print the title you use with the name. Foreign executives in Thailand routinely print their Thai name and the title they are known by, and it is a small and genuine courtesy that is noticed.
And when somebody tells you what to call them, use that, immediately, and without argument. A Thai person saying "call me Nong" is not making a suggestion. They are giving you a place in the social structure, and accepting it is the entire point.
Why this is worth an article
Because it is the difference between being a visitor and being a guest, and it costs nothing. One name, one title, and the observation that Thai people are usually much more relaxed about a foreigner getting this wrong than a foreigner imagining they are.
Most visitors never notice any of this, and it shows: they are addressed by an English title all trip, they never get a name, and they leave having had a pleasant time without having been admitted anywhere. The adjustment is a ten minute one and it changes the register of the whole trip.
