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It's a pretty unique first name, and I feel like people (online, and IRL) refer to him by either first or last name 50% of the time.

Sergey Brin also comes to mind. Unique name, people don't really say "Brin". Just Sergey, given the correct context.

I don't think this is a case of people thinking they're "best buds with the man," like when people rarely referred to Jobs as "Steve."

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Boris Johnson is another example. He made Boris almost a brand.

I hear a lot of people say 'Rishi' now, and it seems to be a bit of a joke at Rishi Sunaks expense, to be derogatory about the PM, rather than branding.

"Sergey" is a rather common name - if I were spewing forth Slavic/Russian names off the cuff, it'd be in the first 5 probably (with Dmitri and Piotr).

I really meant within the right context, which would be western folks in tech talking about notable people in the industry, and likely have mentioned Google at some point in the conversation. Sergey isn't a common name among the notable in western tech.

Elon is even more unique of a name to western ears, so I was just pointing out that another (yet less unique) name also gets the first-name treatment.

For more examples, I'd say Satya Nadella also gets 50/50 first/last name treatment in casual conversation.

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