In Japanese, the most common way of showing respect to another person’s social standing is with the use of honorific suffixes that are appended on the end of either first or last names. The most common, -san, means either Mr., Ms., or Mrs.
When you are addressing someone who is higher in the chain of command than yourself (i.e. your boss or high elected officials deserving of respect) you should use the suffix -sama. When addressing friends or schoolmates, it’s popular to use -chan or -ko for girls (sometimes cutting their first name down to one syllable before appending the suffix) and -chan or -kun for boys. For teachers, -sensei is used.
It’s important to note that you should never use a suffix on your own name. If you’re introducing yourself, do not call yourself David-san or Smith-san. Just David or David Smith will do.
The town in this novel, Chikata, is completely fictional, though the area I put it in is not. Saitama prefecture is located to the west of Tokyo, and many of the eastern areas are considered to be suburbs of the city. Chikata is located farther out west, nearer to the prefectures of Nagano and Gunma.