You can call me "Al"...

[Eva Elisabeth]

...rather than "Abe" - I have often read Abraham Lincoln didn't like to be addressed that way. Does anyone know a direct source? The closest I could approach is Frederic Trevor Hill: "Lincoln the Lawyer", page 175:
   
Here's the download:
https://archive.org/download/lincolnlawy...llgoog.pdf

So far I haven't further researched Judge Weldon's statement as he didn't particularly seem to refer to Abraham Lincoln uttering dislike of "Abe".

I would suspect one of "Herndon's Informants" but couldn't find so far. Thanks for any help with this!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ULjCSK0oOlI

[RJNorton]

Eva, this does not totally answer your question, but I hope it helps.

In the book Abraham Lincoln, By Some Men Who Knew Him John W. Bunn wrote:

"I am proud to say that I was one of his junior political agents. Like very many others, I was always glad to do for him anything that I could do. I was often present at political gatherings, held for the purpose of consultation, and I thus came to know pretty well the workings of his mind, so far as they could be learned from close personal contact and observation. I certainly knew something about his personal bearing and concerning the attitude of others towards him. I never heard any man call Mr. Lincoln ‘Abe,’ and he certainly was never spoken of as ‘Abe’ in his own presence. It was not until the campaign of 1860 that I began to hear the talk about ‘Abe’ Lincoln and ‘Honest Abe.’ His associates always called him ‘Mr. Lincoln.’ It may be that sometimes men like Judge Logan, John T. Stuart, Judge Davis or Leonard Swett, called him simply "Lincoln."

[Eva Elisabeth]

Thanks, Roger. Very interesting - Bunn, too, just states that Abraham Lincoln had (probably) never been addressed that way ("in his own presence"). This is not the same as if he had said he disliked to be called "Abe" as I've repeatedly read. So maybe this claim (dislike) was just embellished?

[RJNorton]

Good question, Eva. I do not believe I have seen a quote from Lincoln himself regarding this.

On the web page here John Simon writes:

"What should be taken into account is that while Springfield friends called him "Lincoln," old friends from New Salem days called him "Abe."

[Gene C]

Ann Rutledge & Uncle Jimmy called him "Abe' in the D W Griffith classic, "Abraham Lincoln"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1A6KjUYiZk

(about the 11 minute mark)

[wpbinzel]

I have shared this with Eva, but the off-the-top-of-my-head response was Albert J. Beveridge's Abraham Lincoln 1809 - 1858 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1928). On page 535 of Volume I, he wrote: "he spoke to all but two of his close friends and associates at the bar by the family name, rarely by the Christian name, ... and he was similarly addressed as Lincoln, not as Abe nor as Mr. Lincoln." Beveridge's source, as noted by Eva, was Frederic Trevor Hill in Lincoln the Lawyer, New York, 1906, page 175.

But that does not answer her original question, i.e., what is the source of the Lincoln's oft-reported dislike of the name "Abe"? That he did not use it seems to be the custom of the time. Few men used their first names in correspondence and conversation, and even fewer used their "nicknames." (Initials or abbreviations of first names in conjunction with last name seems to be the 19th Century norm.) Compliance with or preference for current custom is not necessarily emblematic of "dislike," and I do not know the original source of the claim. Herndon would seem a good place to start, but I do not recall seeing it there.

[Angela]

Eva, I recently discussed this on another board.
Apparently there are two sources.

One is William Herndon who wrote:

“Not even Judge David Davis or any or his other intimates felt sufficiently free and easy to call him Abe or slap him on the shoulder”.

The other one comes from Henry Clay Whitney who writes in "Life on the Circuit with Lincoln":

“Although I have heard of cheap fellows, professing that they were wont to address him as ‘Abe,’ I never knew of any one who ever did it in my presence.
Lincoln disdained ceremony, but he gave no license for being called ‘Abe.’
His preference was being called ‘Lincoln’ with no handle at all.”

[Eva Elisabeth]

Thank you so much, Angela! Could you possibly share on which page in Whitney's book this is?

[Angela]

(06-25-2016 04:15 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Thank you so much, Angela! Could you possibly share on which page in Whitney's book this is?

Page 73 - but I do not know which edition.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Thanks much, Angela!

[LincolnMan]

Eva: love the title of this thread!

[Eva Elisabeth]

Thanks, Bill - and, please forgive, I forgot to say thank you, Bill B., for your" most helpful and appreciated info and leading me to "Trevor "!

[Anita]

How did Lincoln's father addess his son?
Also how was he addressed by his mother and stepmother?

[Eva Elisabeth]

His stepmother called him "Abe":
http://lincoln-live.lib.niu.edu/islandor...ln%3A34912

[Anita]

(06-25-2016 05:34 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  His stepmother called him "Abe":
http://lincoln-live.lib.niu.edu/islandor...ln%3A34912

Thanks Eva.