Say I was speaking in Japanese to someone right, I tell them they dropped something and they reply with “who dropped it?” (but in Japanese) however the person I’m talking about is them. Would I reply with “you” (anata) even though I heard that it is considered rude? Or do I just say their name?
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If you know the persons name you would use that rather than あなた。Of course it always depends on the exact context of the situation, but generally you avoid あなた when the name is known.
To be honest, you wouldn’t even really need to use anything for the subject. Most of what I’ve heard people say when I’ve dropped something is just すみません to grab my attention followed by これを落としました。
If it’s someone you know, you’d use their name instead of すみません to grab their attention.
Using あなた in Japanese to mean “you” is fine, however it’s commonly taught/emphasized to Japanese learners (especially those coming from English) that using あなた/you is rude or uncommon and using their name is preferred. This is because us westerners tend to overuse pronouns a lot more than they should be and it comes across as weird (and/or **can** sound rude). There’s still plenty of real situations where using あなた would be the natural way of phrasing things so you shouldn’t necessarily try to avoid saying that at all costs.
In your situations, if you know their name or title then you should use that to address them. You can also be more indirect and not have to specify anything at all and just imply it through context. Imagine you see a stranger drop something as they are walking, you pick it up, run up to them and go 「あの…すみませんが、これ、さっきあそこで拾ったんですが」 and they would probably notice you’re talking about something of theirs and understand what you mean. (disclaimer: that sentence might not be 100% natural since I wrote it, but I think it would be understandable at least, please correct me if I’m wrong).
If you absolutely need to address them specifically (like out of a crowd, etc) and you literally know nothing about them, you can say あなた obviously and it wouldn’t necessarily come across as rude (depends on the tone too).
You can use あなた but it is awkward in most cases. If I want to be casual, I would use お母さんが落とされたんですけど、or お兄さんが、and other address terms appropriate for the person as a reply to ‘Who dropped the thing?’
if you were a police or immigration officer (i.e. someone in a position of ultimate authority in that context), and the conversation took place on the premises under a direct jurisdiction of the corresponding services (i.e. in a police station or at an immigration bureau), **”anata”** would have worked perfectly well
otherwise, stick to **”sochira”**