S'funny you should mention Geoff Wellum, hoof,
Read the captions to the photos and you'll see his fellow pilots Titch and Ginge and Sailor, good old Bob and Sergeant This and Flight Sergeant That. His own ground crew do have knicknames but I doubt if he knew the first names of anyone else's or those on 2nd line Servicing. All groundcrew conversation is written down in "Cockney" or northern oik. It was another world, another time and nothing wrong with that; its just the way it was. People from backgrounds like Geoff Wellum were blissfully unconscious of it.
Nevertheless, the traditional viewpoints linger on and probably nothing will ever change - it's already become part of the service's 'tradition' I'm afraid. I visited a Royal Navy ship in port locally and a Lieutenant in the marine engineering branch, was kind enough to conduct me around his combined home and workplace. I couldn't help noticing how this officer's relations, and indeed those of his fellow officers, with the crew members that we met during the tour, differed from those I experienced in the RAF and that, unchanged until today, now form the point under discussion.
I suppose the difference In the Royal Navy is that everyone is, as it were, in the same boat.