Dropping the honorific suffix when referring to one's interlocutor, which is known as to yobisute (呼び捨て?), implies a high degree of intimacy and is generally reserved for one's spouse, younger family members, social inferiors (as in a teacher addressing students in traditional arts), and very close friends. Within sports teams or among classmates, where the interlocutors approximately have the same age or seniority, it can be acceptable to use family names without honorifics. Some people of the younger generation, roughly born since 1970, prefer to be referred to without an honorific. However, dropping honorifics is a sign of informality even with casual acquaintances.

When referring to a third person, honorifics are used except when referring to one's family members while talking to a non-family member, or when referring to a member of one's company while talking to a customer or someone from another company—this is the uchi-soto (in-out) distinction. Honorifics are not used to refer to oneself, except when trying to be arrogant (ore-sama), to be cute (-chan), or sometimes when talking to small children to teach them how to address the speaker.

Use of honorifics is correlated with other forms of honorific speech in Japanese, notably use of the polite form (-masu, desu) versus the plain form—using the plain form with a polite honorific (-san, -sama) can be jarring, for instance.