Suppose you join a new club, or start a new job and meet a group of 15 to 20 new people all at once.
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Do you worry about not knowing names?
Do you feel annoyed when someone can't seem to remember your name and must ask you?
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Do you consider yourself "good with names?"
@futurebird I remember people more by faces, personality, and context than by name. In fact, I usually have to experience a proper name around three or four times before my brain realises it's important enough to remember. The reason I specified "proper names" is that I have the exact same problem with place names.
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Do you feel annoyed when someone can't seem to remember your name and must ask you?
@futurebird No, but I feel annoyed when they call me Brian.
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Do you worry about not knowing names?
@futurebird It bothers me for two reasons. 1) it signals that I don’t care, even when I do. 2) is my mother’s cognitive decline hereditary? Is it my time?
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Do you feel annoyed when someone can't seem to remember your name and must ask you?
@futurebird It wouldn't be fair: I can never remember anyone else's name.

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Do you worry about not knowing names?
@futurebird Nobody ever forgets my name...I feel bad not remembering theirs.
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Do you feel annoyed when someone can't seem to remember your name and must ask you?
@futurebird no, because the shoe is very often on the other foot.
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Do you worry about not knowing names?
@futurebird if possible I lookup teams in Slack, Signal, w/e and try to match the names I read there with the people I meet. I do actually invest time in this between meetings: do I know all the people in this team? Is there anyone with the same first name as another in another team? (Searching in Slack is very helpful for this last one)
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Do you feel annoyed when someone can't seem to remember your name and must ask you?
@futurebird Given how terrible I am at remembering names I can’t get annoyed at others forgetting my name!
I typically have the opposite problem. People who obviously think they know me start chatting and I have no idea who they are!
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When faced with so many new names do you do anything to help you remember?
@futurebird I use mnemonics to try remembering names.
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Do you worry about not knowing names?
@futurebird add to that the weird problem of being famous among geeks...so many more people remember my name and when I first met them. It's embarrassing.
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Do you feel annoyed when someone can't seem to remember your name and must ask you?
I've always *thought* I had a problem remembering names, but really everyone seems to say this and I think my natural retention is about average. And my profession means I need to remember an unnatural number of names.
After much emotional agony I just started making flash cards. The only thing that kept me from doing this for so long was the feeling that it was "business bro" behavior. But, it was the best decision ever. Mostly because it makes me less flustered and stressed.
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Do you feel annoyed when someone can't seem to remember your name and must ask you?
@futurebird I will probably feel annoyed if I ever forget my own name.

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Do you consider yourself "good with names?"
@futurebird Perfect sequence of questions and interesting results
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I've always *thought* I had a problem remembering names, but really everyone seems to say this and I think my natural retention is about average. And my profession means I need to remember an unnatural number of names.
After much emotional agony I just started making flash cards. The only thing that kept me from doing this for so long was the feeling that it was "business bro" behavior. But, it was the best decision ever. Mostly because it makes me less flustered and stressed.
@futurebird I work with Deaf people, so on top of the regular English names, I need to recall sign names. Despite being a really visual person, I have to work harder to connect the sign name than I do for the English one. In some ways, I’ll *always* be a hearing-brained person, despite my time in this career and community.
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Do you feel annoyed when someone can't seem to remember your name and must ask you?
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Do you feel annoyed when someone can't seem to remember your name and must ask you?
@futurebird I’m more surprised when someone remembers it.
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I've always *thought* I had a problem remembering names, but really everyone seems to say this and I think my natural retention is about average. And my profession means I need to remember an unnatural number of names.
After much emotional agony I just started making flash cards. The only thing that kept me from doing this for so long was the feeling that it was "business bro" behavior. But, it was the best decision ever. Mostly because it makes me less flustered and stressed.
Every year I have one student with a name that's pronounced in a different way than I expect. I've had this happen with the name "Ann" (the student went by "on" not "ahn")
I still haven't perfected the solution to that one and feel terrible when I get the stress or vowels wrong for the second or third time.
The more subtile a name the faster the student tends to say it... probably because they are tired of correcting their teachers, but that makes it harder.
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I've always *thought* I had a problem remembering names, but really everyone seems to say this and I think my natural retention is about average. And my profession means I need to remember an unnatural number of names.
After much emotional agony I just started making flash cards. The only thing that kept me from doing this for so long was the feeling that it was "business bro" behavior. But, it was the best decision ever. Mostly because it makes me less flustered and stressed.
@futurebird how do you use flashcards? Write names and reminder info when you go home after meeting? Or?
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I've always *thought* I had a problem remembering names, but really everyone seems to say this and I think my natural retention is about average. And my profession means I need to remember an unnatural number of names.
After much emotional agony I just started making flash cards. The only thing that kept me from doing this for so long was the feeling that it was "business bro" behavior. But, it was the best decision ever. Mostly because it makes me less flustered and stressed.
@futurebird I'm faceblind so I cannot recognize people or remember names even if I remember who they are otherwise. It's awful and I hate it. And if I'm hanging out with someone IRL (not that that ever happens anymore) I'm always weirdly staring trying to memorize their face
it never works unless they have something really distinctive like a birthmark or a scar or a mole or a missing tooth, something that I can clearly remember. Sigh. Brain fail.