Last Name, First Name, Red Name, Blue Name?

[stormdog]

Do any of my readers with a last name that might, by some stretch, be thought of as a first name (such as Allen) ever get a response to an email written by someone who, for some reason, has decided your last name *is* your first name?

I've been called Allen, as in "Hi Allen," by staff at three different grad programs I've applied to. This happened to me a lot when I was working in tech support too, and it really confuses me.

And now, suddenly, I've entered that headspace where you think too hard about an everyday word and it loses all meaning. I'm looking at the word "Allen" there on my Facebook wall, and I'm like "That's such a weird word. What does it mean? Why is that a last name and how did I get it?" Which is only made funnier by the fact that my last name was completely made up by my dad's mother, who was a single mom and wanted to avoid stigma.