What is a good form of address for a male friend who is too old to be 小, too young to be 老, and too humble to be called 大?

Question

I have a male "friend", last name 柯 (kē) who is over 30. From ages 18-30 or so, he went by 小柯, but that seems less and less appropriate as he gets older. Always going by his full name seems overly long and formal, he doesn't like "大", and he's not old enough for 老 (yet).

My "friend" was thinking about going by 阿柯 (ā kē) and having friends introduce him this way. He thought the main benefit would be that people both younger and older could use this friendlier, less intimidating and formal means of address. My "friend" isn't a native speaker, so he's not sure if there are negative connotations.

So would 阿 [LAST NAME] be the best form of address for these conditions or if not, what would a better one be?

[EDIT] I should have originally specified that he himself is looking for something to be called "around the office", that is, both by people senior and junior to him. His boss calling him 老柯 or 柯哥 doesn't seem quite appropriate. It does seem that 哥 is the most popular "among friends" answer.

Answer 1

• if he is older than you are, then 柯兄 (柯老兄)
• if he is younger, then 老弟 (柯老弟)
• if he is of the same age, and his first name consists 2 chinese characters, then first name
• if he is of the same age, and his first name consists 1 chinese character, then full name (calling someone by their full name is not rude if they are the same age or younger in China)

EDIT: I'm from Northern China and we don't use 阿X as often. that's more of a southern convention.

Note: if his first name is one character, then calling him by his first name sounds 肉麻。 It is actually worse if you are of the same gender. then that just sounds wrong! :P

Answer 2

The real age doesn't really matters for being 老sth. we usually call some of our peers 老* especially when one is considered having a mature personality. If you are introducing your friend who's much younger than you, you can say 这是小*.. If your friend is a big guy around some age, you can say 这是大柯. 大* is popular in the north, in my hometown no one use this form. you can also say this is *哥, around same age, he doesn't need to be older than you. Always remember sounding good, sounding rhyme is important too.

Answer 3

[Surname]哥哥 or 大哥

So if his surname is 王 (Wong), you can use:

王哥哥

Essentially, "Brother Wong" or for a literal translation: "Elder Brother Wong"

Informally, when you're speaking to him one on one as a friend, constantly saying 王哥哥 can be verbose, in which case you can just say "大哥" like 喂大哥...

[EDIT] In response to your edit: 阿[Name] would be most appropriate around the office. There are no negative connotations. Note that you should not use the surname as you've proposed because many Chinese people share a similar surname.

Use the last 1-2 characters in a name. I'll attempt to explain by example:

Name: 王小宝 Address as 阿宝 OR 阿小宝

Name: 王明明 Address as 阿明 OR 阿明明

For skills/crafts, you would use [Surname]师傅. So if Chef Wong is a skilled chef, 王师傅. Note that this is more formal, and if "Chef Wong" is a friend, you would go back to 王哥(哥)/"Brother Wong" in everyday speech.