Comment Re:Help a poor, ignorant American out. "-san"? (Score 4, Informative) 39
I know I shouldn't feed the troll, but I will respond to the first point. Adding -San to a name is somewhat similar to saying Mr. but Japanese honorifics tend to be slightly more nuanced than the Mr, and Mrs, style honorifics of English. In japan it's considered very impolite to refer to someone by their given name rather than family name, unless you are very close friends. Likewise it is considered impolite in Japanese to leave off any honorific again unless you are very close friends.
Generally adding -san to a name indicates that the person is someone you do not have a close relationship with, and denotes a respectful tone. Other honorifics commonly used in modern japan include -sama, which would be given to someone you strongly look up to or who is highly above your social station, it's roughly the equivalent of calling someone 'boss' but again is more nuanced and respectful than that, -kun is generally used to refer to someone who is below your social station while still being respectful, it's common that in a work environment for a supervisor to speak to a (generally male) junior with -kun, while the junior would refer to their supervisor with -san, while the president of the company would be -sama. -chan is the last commonly used honorific, and is generally used in similar situations where -kun would be used for females, it's also used to indicate 'cuteness' or for small children. A mascot character might be referred to as Mascot-chan if they're supposed to be cute or childish, and it is common for adults to refer to elementary grade or younger children with -chan.
There's more nuances to Japanese honorifics than I give here, but that's the long and short of it, if you're ever in doubt which honorific would be appropriate to a given situation, generally going with -san is a safe fall back.