Names may never hurt you in the USA, but in Germany insulting someone may lead to a lawsuit and have professional consequences. It’s called Beleidigung and can be a crime! People are very direct here and our American ‘nicey-nice’ is often viewed as insincere, but European cultural concepts of personal honor combined with the more recent protection of the individual make name calling illegal. You can say almost anything about a person’s conduct but you can’t attack them personally. As I said in my recent Instagram clip, I ran into this when I was new in Germany and it could have cost me if the theater’s Union rep (GdBA) hadn’t intervened.