mused with mary

I write this (admittedly random) post as somewhat of a disclaimer, an apology, and a public service announcement. Everyone has those qualities about themselves that are of utmost annoyance. (Admit that you do.) For me, my inability to remember names really causes me a lot of grief, stress, and embarrassment. People laugh whenever I say to them, “It is so nice to meet you! I will try so hard to remember your name, but please forgive me if I don’t.” The truth is, nine times out of ten I do forget that person’s name and have to battle the shame and humility of asking again. This really isn’t a good quality to have. People like it when you remember their names, naturally, and it may come across as an insult if you don’t. This post isn’t a “I struggle with this but here are three things to do so you don’t”, because I haven’t figured out how to remember people’s names. If you know a way, please enlighten me.

Let me start by explaining why I don’t remember names. First and foremost, I feel that a name is somewhat meaningless and insignificant. I could meet you and say my name is Samantha and then proceed with every other accurate description of who I am without changing anything about who I really am. A name is a label, literally, and I don’t think labels are as important as the objects they describe. You could call my coffee “valendwarf” and I would still love it because I love the object of coffee, not the name that it holds. So when I meet someone, yes, their name is often the first fact I learn about them and often the first I forget. The other stuff, the good stuff, is what matters so much to me. I care more about a person’s interests, passions, ambitions, relationships, and every other aspect of their life way more than a name. SO forgetting a name isn’t as bad as it seems – it just means someone is paying more attention to the other details that are more important.

I have tried ways to remember names. I first Googled, “Ways to remember names” which later escalated to a frustrated, “Why do I forget names?” search. These two proved to be helpful as I was met with some useful tips. Some of the most common ones include things like as soon as you meet a person, connect their name with a physical quality about them. Sarah has red hair and blue eyes. Or connect their name to an aspect of their personality. Auguste is very outspoken and likes to talk. Another helpful tip I’ve discovered: use their name almost immediately in a sentence. I have found that this actually is helpful. I don’t know the psychology behind it, but it seems that by taking an external, arbitrary name and internalizing it into your own vocabulary helps establish its importance in your short-term memory and later long-term memory. This reduces my rate of forgetting to about 50%, which is a big increase from 90%. Nonetheless, these little tips are helpful but not totally effective.

I guess I’m trying to say, if you forget names, don’t beat yourself up about it like I do. Maybe it just means you’re more interested in the other aspects of a person instead of a simple label they use. I love meeting new people and hearing about their life and goals and personality, but I hate forgetting names. It is one of my worst qualities and something I hope to improve on. If you have tips for improving this, let me know – and I’ll try to remember your name 🙂