#remembering names

[alarminglybad]

Yes, I really am that bad

[stone-cold-groove]

How to Remember Names and Faces. Nelson Doubleday - 1958.

[ailelie]

How I Remember Names

Names don't attach to features. Unique compositions of features are just too complicated to learn and remember. I can usually note a face is familiar, but not recognizable.

Instead, names get attached to locations. So, if I see a familiar face without a name in a place with a faceless name, I know the two probably go together.

If I meet two people at the same time, I can attach broad categories to the name. Gender, age extremes (young or old; anything in between doesn't help), skin color, anything out of the ordinary or that I covet (I wear glasses so I covet cool glasses), etc. And, to help with remembering, I only attach as many categories as needed to distinguish between the people I met.

If one is male and other female, done. If they're the same gender, then I go to another point of difference between them. But, of course, sometimes I'm distracted and don't catalog enough. So I get people crossed.

(Note: I still would not bet my life on getting the names of my father's sisters correct.)

If I remember someone as the blonde woman in the lobby and someone else as the blonde woman in the lunchroom, I am going to be utterly sunk if I meet them both on my floor. We're still at work, so I only have two faceless names to contend with, but I will have to literally stand there and try to imagine each in both the lobby and lunchroom and try to feel which one seems more right.

And if I meet a familiar face in a place with zero attached names, my first step is imagining that person in different locations because if I can figure out which is right, I can either recall their name or, at least, narrow their name down to a shorter list.

Once I realized this is how my brain works, I try to connect more broad categories to names at the first meeting. It helps some.

[trexalicious]

[scr4wny-cl0wn-sn4tch]

I worked at Target with a girl named Siobhan, and she said it was pronounced "Shi-von", like Chevonne. And I could NEVER remember how to say her name, because in my head the look of "Siobhan" and sound of "Shi-von" just wouldn't connect. I still have trouble remembering how to say Siobhan when I see it as someone's name on a friend suggestion on FB or Insta... Like I JUST can't remember it, and it's the only name I've ever really had trouble remembering how to pronounce because it's so different than it looks.

[autism-asks]

iiaat to recognize faces but not have a clue what their name is? Sometimes it just takes a bit but sometimes I can't remember until someone else says it

I think both allistic and autistic people experience this.

-Kath

[autism-asks]

Is it an autism thing to not remember people names or is that just me?

Memory problems can be an aspect of executive dysfunction which is common in autistic people. 

-Sabrina