Shanghainese 1930's British customes

My late husband was Chinese, whose family were originally from Shanghai.The family left China during the Japanese occupation and never returned. His family lived until the late 1930's in the then so-called British quarter of Shanghai and learned to speak English in the British style and followed some British customs also. Some family members called each other (family and friends) by using the first two initials of their anglicized version of their Chinese names. eg. Uncle Tien Soh was called Uncle TS and so on. Have you heard of this custom elsewhere? I believe it is an old upper class British tradition to use initials instead of a person's complete name. I don't believe this is the case any longer.