Does anyone else have great difficulty in remembering people’s names?

[johnnychips]

I’m 61, so in general I suppose at my age I would have expected to have less memory than before, but I have terrible problems in remembering people’s names.

Obviously at work, I’m OK with people I see daily, but with other staff, I know exactly what their role is, even details about their family and where they live, but just can’t get their names.

Of course Forum meets are even worse, as everybody has a Username and their real name, so that’s twice the problem. When I see faces, I can remember the walks we’ve been on, which rail experiences they’ve been on, where they live and their job, but I just don’t remember the name.

I have Forum rule of thumb that if I call someone ’Dave’ I have a one-in-ten chance of getting it right.

Have you any advice - would you rather I came out with ‘sorry I’m dreadful at names’ - even though I’ve been on a walk with you six times, and this is not exaggerating, which would seem incredibly rude; or just stumble on and hope I don’t have to introduce you to anyone?

 

[davehsug]

Absolutely. I just can't remember names. Even famous people, I'll see pictures, I'll be able to tell you lots of things about them, but I won't remember their name. It's been happening for the last few years, I'm 64 at the moment and have no other memory problems (well short term can be a bit dodgy), it's just names I really struggle with.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

I've had this sort of thing for years. There's people at work I've seen almost daily for about 20 years or so; I take to them regularly but every now and again my mind will go completely blank when I'm trying to greet them by name...

 

[Calthrop]

My "ex" (we're still affectionately in touch) is probably the worst-afflicted person this way, whom I've ever encountered. I have once or twice been unable to refrain from remarking to her, rather unkindly, that it's a marvel that she can remember her own name.

 

[John Webb]

I've always had problems matching names and faces - spent 28 years in one job and still couldn't put names to faces I'd known for those 28 years, particularly those I never worked directly with. And I was a bit over 23 years old when I started that job! Still have problems today - I can visualise the person's face but can't get the name attached to it now and again.

So if I can't remember a name of someone I've met, I apologise, explain I'm terrible at remembering names and faces, and politely ask for a reminder of who they are.

 

[Ostrich]

I've always had that problem, especially when meeting people "out of context". Embarrassingly, I could have a whole conversation on the street with you without remembering who you are. Conversely, I can accurately drive from A to B with just one glance through a road map beforehand.

Mrs O and I actually make a perfect team. She has instant recall of faces - "you forgot that was so-and-so, didn't you?" - but she can't navigate for toffee!

 

[Mcr Warrior]

A former work colleague wasn't always the best with remembering names and so just referred to everyone (male or female) as "Superstar!" Whereas another person I once knew could remember literally hundreds (and maybe thousands) of individuals' names.

 

[duncanp]

I have Forum rule of thumb that if I call someone ’Dave’ I have a one-in-ten chance of getting it right.

Rather like Trigger in Only Fools And Horses

If you genuinely can't remember people's names, it is perfectly acceptable to admit you have problems in remembering names and ask them again.

How often you meet someone determines how easy it is for you to remember their name.

This is rather like online passwords.

If you log on to a website fairly infrequently, there is more chance that you will forget the password. Hence the reason why every good website will have a facility to reset a password.

 

[yorksrob]

Yes, I've never been any good with names.

 

[alxndr]

I can remember names, but I can't remember faces, which often has the same practical result. It's not much good if I know I worked with John Smith on that really stormy night when I replaced that bit of kit if I can't remember the face that goes with it and wouldn't know who he was if he walked up to me.

Some people are worse than others for me, I had a boss for a while and everytime I had to go into the office I would have to search him on Facebook to remind myself what he looked like to make sure I didn't start speaking to the wrong person.

 

[kermit]

My "ex" (we're still affectionately in touch) is probably the worst-afflicted person this way, whom I've ever encountered. I have once or twice been unable to refrain from remarking to her, rather unkindly, that it's a marvel that she can remember her own name.

As I started to read your post I thought for an awful moment you were going to say you couldn't remember your "ex"'s name!!

 

[najaB]

I’m 61, so in general I suppose at my age I would have expected to have less memory than before, but I have terrible problems in remembering people’s names.

A degree of nominal aphasia - difficulty/inability to remember names - is fairly common*.

If you think of the brain as a data processing system, the reason is that when you meet someone the name goes into short-term memory, which stores data for minutes to hours, but short-term memory acts as a filter to long-term memory. We simply cannot remember everything, so a very large percentage (maybe 99%) of engrams are marked as 'not important' and are cleared out to make room.

Generally, the first step to marking something as important enough to keep is repetition - if we see/hear the same thing multiple times then the engram gets reinforced. Which is why songs, nursery rhymes or stories that you heard multiple times as a child are easily recalled, even decades later. The other thing that gets an important flag is emotional impact - the thing that made you scared or brought you great joy is much more likely to be stored than the details of that boring meeting last week.

So, if you find it difficult to remember names of people you've only met a few times it is just a sign that your brain is working the way it's supposed to work. One trick to help you remember names that you want/need to is to repeat the name several times, and another is to try to associate the person to an emotion or something else that you have already remembered (e.g. a song title).

*More extreme cases eg. where people are unable to remember the names of common objects can be a sign of brain misfunction.

 

[Gloster]

It is said that Lord Richard (Dickie) Attenborough suffered from this, which is a bit of a problem when you work in an industry which has large numbers of people with massive egos and who expect to be recognised at every turn. This was apparently why he had a habit of addressing everybody as ‘Darling’, as though he was archetypal theatrical luvvie.

 

[Busaholic]

A degree of nominal aphasia - difficulty/inability to remember names - is fairly common*.

If you think of the brain as a data processing system, the reason is that when you meet someone the name goes into short-term memory, which stores data for minutes to hours, but short-term memory acts as a filter to long-term memory. We simply cannot remember everything, so a very large percentage (maybe 99%) of engrams are marked as 'not important' and are cleared out to make room.

Generally, the first step to marking something as important enough to keep is repetition - if we see/hear the same thing multiple times then the engram gets reinforced. Which is why songs, nursery rhymes or stories that you heard multiple times as a child are easily recalled, even decades later. The other thing that gets an important flag is emotional impact - the thing that made you scared or brought you great joy is much more likely to be stored than the details of that boring meeting last week.

So, if you find it difficult to remember names of people you've only met a few times it is just a sign that your brain is working the way it's supposed to work. One trick to helpou remember names that you want/need to is to repeat the name several times, and another is to try to associate the person to an emotion or something else that you have already remembered (e.g. a song title).

*More extreme cases eg. where people are unable to remember the names of common objects can be a sign of brain misfunction.

My grandfather, then in his early and mid 90s, used to beat himself up metaphorically that he couldn't always remember my wife's name when we met. He was 91 when he first saw or heard of her! He lived by then on the first floor of a big Victorian house, where his meals were made and washing done, otherwise he was on his own on a day-by-day basis, the highlight of his day being a visit to the newsagent a few hundred yards away to buy his newspaper, with a weekly visit to the public library a mile away, all reached on foot. His brain was as keen as ever until the day he died, aged 99, basically from old age.

 

[Cowley]

I've always had that problem, especially when meeting people "out of context". Embarrassingly, I could have a whole conversation on the street with you without remembering who you are. Conversely, I can accurately drive from A to B with just one glance through a road map beforehand.

Mrs O and I actually make a perfect team. She has instant recall of faces - "you forgot that was so-and-so, didn't you?" - but she can't navigate for toffee!

Blimey I could have written this @Ostrich!

I’m exactly the same but I’ve got another embarrassing trait which is that I forget people’s names that I know really well when I introduce them to other people. The worst time that this happened was when I forgot the name of the young lady I was trying to impress having taken her away for the weekend when I tried to introduce her to one of my best friends.
Needless to say that relationship didn’t get off the ground!

I had exactly the same experience last weekend when introducing a couple of people to each other and I think the stress of the above anecdote still causes my brain to empty of names the moment I need them to come to mind…

 

[RuddA]

I've always had that problem, especially when meeting people "out of context". Embarrassingly, I could have a whole conversation on the street with you without remembering who you are. Conversely, I can accurately drive from A to B with just one glance through a road map beforehand.

Mrs O and I actually make a perfect team. She has instant recall of faces - "you forgot that was so-and-so, didn't you?" - but she can't navigate for toffee!

Snap, could almost have written that myself. Can remember places I have been many years before and navigate easily, but never peoples names.
My wife is the same as yours too. Uses a sat-nav to drive to see family even though I have driven her there many times before. Faces and names she finds easy to remember.

 

[najaB]

Snap, could almost have written that myself. Can remember places I have been many years before and navigate easily, but never peoples names.
My wife is the same as yours too. Uses a sat-nav to drive to see family even though I have driven her there many times before. Faces and names she finds easy to remember.

There is possibly an evolutionary explanation for this. In the hunter-gatherer society the hunter would need to be able to travel long distances while stalking game and navigate back to the camp, while the woman's role didn't require them to travel as far away from camp, but they would have been a lot more social interaction between members of the group.

 

[LSWR Cavalier]

I am retired, quite active and busy, I sometimes forget what I did yesterday.

If you can not remember someone's name, try this:

"What is your name?"
"Smith!"
"I know that, I mean your first name!"

 

[swt_passenger]

I am retired, quite active and busy, I sometimes forget what I did yesterday.

If you can not remember someone's name, try this:

"What is your name?"
"Smith!"
"I know that, I mean your first name!"

I remember that from somewhere, it also works for the other 2 likely answers. And if he replies “Bob Smith” you can say “I knew it was Smith, but wasn’t sure if you preferred Bob or Robert”…

 

[Busaholic]

I remember that from somewhere, it also works for the other 2 likely answers. And if he replies “Bob Smith” you can say “I knew it was Smith, but wasn’t sure if you preferred Bob or Robert”…

Let's be honest, it fools nobody!

 

[johnnychips]

Thank goodness it’s just not me.

@najaB - ‘nominal aphasia’. I’ll remember that at the next forum meet.

EDIT: or perhaps I won’t

 

[Busaholic]

Thank goodness it’s just not me.

@najaB - ‘nominal aphasia’. I’ll remember that at the next forum meet.

EDIT: or perhaps I won’t

Brother of Hyacinth Aphasia.

 

[RuddA]

Thanks @najaB, that makes sense.

Working in an office with quite a high staff turnover at times, I sometimes link a new colleague with a former colleague who had the same name for the first few weeks.

Also helps to explain how my mother knew everyone in the village but when she had to make an unplanned visit to Stansted Airport she accidentally went M11 south rather than north and ended up on the M25 rather than back in Norfolk. My ex drove to Yorkshire and from the A17 took the A1 south rather than north, that added a few extra miles.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Yep, terrible at both names and faces.

 

[Worm]

I have a colleague and he constantly forgets student names, they end up with a new name or ‘big fella’ or ‘tall lad’.

He’s renamed me already and he used to be my teacher at one point, always a good a laugh in the office.

 

[gg1]

Not so much names but I'm awful with faces. There have been numerous occasions I've failed to recognise people I know quite well simply because they've changed their hairstyle (which along with height, build, ethnicity and skin tone are the primary means I use to recognise other people).

 

[D365]

I have Forum rule of thumb that if I call someone ’Dave’ I have a one-in-ten chance of getting it right.

Have you any advice - would you rather I came out with ‘sorry I’m dreadful at names’ - even though I’ve been on a walk with you six times, and this is not exaggerating, which would seem incredibly rude; or just stumble on and hope I don’t have to introduce you to anyone?

Hello!

If I need to remind myself of someone's identity, I just go with "really sorry but remind me of your name please".

Although I am normally quite poor at remembering names, my retention seems a lot better while I'm being paid!

 

[Welshman]

Remembering peoples' names was a problem I had during my forty or so years as a parish priest.
Many people knew me, but I'd forgotten them!
One thing a colleague of mine in a similar situation would do was go up to them, look them squarely in the eye, shake their hand affectionately and say "And how's the old problem, then?"
They went away, impressed he'd remembered them after all these years, whereas in reality, he hadn't a clue.

 

[DelayRepay]

I really struggle when I see people out of context.

If I see work colleagues outside of work (e.g. in a shop) I struggle to put a name to the face. I know that I recognise the person, but cannot recall their name or exactly how I know them. Yet if I see the same person in the office I immediately know who they are. It can lead to awkward moments when someone says 'hello' while I'm doing my shopping or whatever.

 

[najaB]

I really struggle when I see people out of context.

If I see work colleagues outside of work (e.g. in a shop) I struggle to put a name to the face. I know that I recognise the person, but cannot recall their name or exactly how I know them. Yet if I see the same person in the office I immediately know who they are. It can lead to awkward moments when someone says 'hello' while I'm doing my shopping or whatever.

I think that's pretty common and just down to how the brain works - it's natural to associate things with the context in which you expect to see them.

Switch of context is actually the basis of a lot of jokes/humour - e.g. "Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana" works because of the switch in context of "flies".