There are some aspects of Japanese politeness that baffle even the Japanese. Like the habit of saying: "Kyoshuku desu (I'm terrified and shrinking)" in response to someone doing you a favor. And "Osoreirimasu (Fear has entered me)" instead of a plain "Arigato (Thank you)." Are other people really so terrifying -- or are we just suffering from a collective, colossal, politeness hangup?
The hangup can be observed firsthand in the way the Japanese refer to themselves -- which is to say, we rarely refer to ourselves at all. The personal pronoun is a recent phenomenon and only goes back about a century. Until then, it was considered vaguely rude to call anyone by their given names -- and unthinkable for people to highlight their individualities by using the word watashi (me). The word employed when referring to oneself was temae (in front of the hand), which called polite attention to the person attached to the hand.
And how did we call upon one another? Often, locales and places were used in lieu of names. For example, if one had an uncle who lived in Kojimachi, that uncle would be called Kojimachi-no (Kojimachi's). If you lived around the corner, people would call you yokocho-no (from the corner).