These days teachers are supposed to treat it seriously if a student of any comes to you and says " Tommy says he's going to hurt you." Something like that said, a teacher turns to Tattler and says' thank you for sharing, I think we will need to talk more about that." And then the guidance counselor, school psychologist and/ or principal will talk to Tattler and take his testimony. If they think Tattler's telling the truth, then their attention will move to Tommy who said the hurting thing and a lot can happen to any child who says those kind of things these days.
But one child coming to Teacher and saying "Tommy said you're a ------ or anything else" - the rational response to that is to sit down with Tommy and see if he does have an issue. Does Tommy call everybody
a ------? Does Tommy need to look big to his friends? Children are still learning the lesson that words can be powerful and sometimes they can say some powerfully mean things that they really don't mean.
If Tommy was a fairly well-behaved child who seemed pretty happy in school and happy in my classroom, all I'd do would be to keep an extra caring eye on Tommy. I would Never recommend that a child be suspended for having said something mean or nasty about a teacher to another child. And if my administration recommended that the child be suspended, I'd try to insist that we find a different way to handle it.
To suspend a child in that way for that reason is counter-productive and for many reasons. First - it puts too much power in the hands of the Tattler Child - will we always be sure that Tattler Child's tales are true? Will we suspend every child who Tattler tells on or just this first child?
Second - what message does this send to students? Does it create a feeling of community in the classroom and a feeling of trust between the children?
Treating this offense with suspension makes little if any sense. It's not a thoughtful response to this matter and to me wouldn't serve the child or his classroom or his teacher very well.

pbrtn2009, I'm reading your post differently than sbozarth23, and thinking the child referred to the teacher by a rude, vulgar or disrespectful name. If that's the case, and the school has a strong policy against name calling/teasing/bullying of any kind, then I'm not surprised a suspension was given. I think the bigger question is DOES the school have a written policy that outlines what the consequences are when infractions occur, or was this a situation where the teacher "made it up as she went along?" How were you notified of your child's suspension? Is there any kind of "peer hearing board" where you could have appealed the suspension? It sounds like the suspension may already be over with, but I would definitely urge you to write a letter to the principal, asking for a copy of the written guidelines that identify what the school district policy is regarding disciplinary infractions, so that there are no "grey areas" in the future.

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As for your question, being suspended for using a teacher's first name when not directly speaking to them, in my opinion, is extremely harsh and unnecessary. Obviously, the need for students to call teachers by their last name is a sign of respect and having appropriate boundaries. I don't understand why the student was just told "you need to refer to "Mr. Jones" in this way.."

That being said I can't help but think that there's more to this story. I find it hard to believe that, using the teacher's first name when referring to him/her is all that occurred. How old was the student? What did they have to say about what happened?