Haibara-san and others

[Adel34]

Does anyone know why others call her "Haibara-SAN"? From what I learned the suffix "san" is more or less the equivalent of English "Mr" and "Mrs". So it's like they're calling her "Mrs. Haibara". You don't call a 7-year old girl "Mrs". Well, she's not really 7, but almost no one knows this.

Also, I've been noticing that a few women in the series would call their husbands/partners with "-san". You don't call your own husband "Mr", right?

Or maybe there is more to the "-san" than just "Mr/Mrs". I'd be glad if anyone could answer this.

[MoonRaven]

'-san' can also mean 'miss' or 'ms' as in not married woman. In itself it's usually used when one doesn't know a person that well or wants to show respect. It also signifies a certain sort of distance to a person. For example teachers may call their students with surname+san or classmates each other with surname/firstname+san.

For certain I know that Mitsuhiko calls Ai 'Haibara-san'. It's part of his upbringing to be very polite to everyone. He even call his mother and father 'okaa-sama' and 'otou-sama', '-sama' being even more polite than '-san'. His sister does that too.

Basically its part of Japanese culture to use the honorifics. They are very polite towards everyone.

You can read more from here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_honorifics#San

[Wakarimashita]

Women calling their huband using the -san honorific ? That's unusual. Usually, when a woman talks to her husband, she says 'anata' which basically means both you and dear/darling.

[Adel34]

Women calling their huband using the -san honorific ? That's unusual. Usually, when a woman talks to her husband, she says 'anata' which basically means both you and dear/darling.

In episodes 77-78 (A Distinguished Family's Consecutive Death Case) both women talk to their partners using "-san". I know there have been more episodes with this occurence than just those two, but I can't remember which ones.

[Wakarimashita]

Women calling their huband using the -san honorific ? That's unusual. Usually, when a woman talks to her husband, she says 'anata' which basically means both you and dear/darling.

In episodes 77-78 (A Distinguished Family's Consecutive Death Case) both women talk to their partners using "-san". I know there have been more episodes with this occurence than just those two, but I can't remember which ones.

In this case it seems to be a question of social status. The family is very wealthy and with a high social status, and so they have the formality that goes with it : the daughters call their father with the -sama honorific and even one of the 2 daughters calls her older sister 'onee-sama'. If the same story were to take place in a Spanish or French aristocratic family, you could imagine the wifes and husbands using the more formal usted or vous even when talking to each other.