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Answering with your surname
Germans answer the telephone by saying their surname — Schmidt? — rather than hello, and this still holds on landlines and often on mobiles when the number is recognized. It sounds abrupt to an English speaker and is simply efficient: the caller knows immediately they have the right household. If you are calling, you announce yourself the same way before asking for anyone, and going straight to your question without naming yourself is considered rude. The convention extends to the office, where you will hear the full company-name-then-surname formula. Telephone hours are respected too: calling a private number before nine in the morning or after nine at night needs a good reason, and calling on a Sunday is for friends only. One survival that surprises visitors is the Anrufbeantworter greeting, which is usually just a surname and a beep, with no cheerful explanatory sentence — so leave your name, your number spoken slowly, and what you want.