# How many phone numbers do you have memorized? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 7, 2026, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-phone-numbers-do-you-have-memorized/1034616 "2026-11-07T04:15:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2026, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-phone-numbers-do-you-have-memorized/1034616/63 "2026-11-08T08:15:03Z")
> [@Projammer](#): > > With mobile phones you dial exactly once and then give it a name. Basically true, but I remember my wife’s and my numbers more from when I have to tell people or put in a form. When my wife and I got new cell numbers when we came back to Japan, we chose numbers that had the same last four digits. That helped. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2026, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-phone-numbers-do-you-have-memorized/1034616/64 "2026-11-08T09:13:48Z")
My own, my mother’s, my work, and the number my late grandma had when I was 17 that I still use for membership prices at Safeway and Albertsons. ---
**Author:** ![Gordon\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3da27b/32.png) [@Gordon\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gordon_G)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2026, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-phone-numbers-do-you-have-memorized/1034616/65 "2026-11-08T12:02:22Z")
I know my number and my daughter’s, both of which I picked out as easy-to-memorize. Stores and restaurants here have (often worthless) memberships which are accessed by reciting a phone number. There’s at least one (now useless) 20th-century number I still know, because I’d mapped the 9 digits to 9 memorable letters. > [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > > [@Si\_Amigo](#): > > > > But I can’t recall the area code. > > 555 Most area codes have 0 or 1 as the 2nd digit. [You’re thinking of the ‘prefix’ or ‘exchange.’ All L.A. numbers have a 555 prefix.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6PBhdM9Ftg) ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2026, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-phone-numbers-do-you-have-memorized/1034616/66 "2026-11-08T13:14:37Z")
In 1976 I met a lady who worked as a telephone information operator. This was before they had computers to help with their job, and had to use books themselves. I asked her how they usually gave their answers so quickly. She said they had many of the more used numbers memorized. So I tested her on a local office supplies store, a hardware store, a few things like that whose numbers I happened to remember. She knew almost all of them by heart. ---
**Author:** ![smithsb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smithsb/32/12107_2.png) [@smithsb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smithsb)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2026, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-phone-numbers-do-you-have-memorized/1034616/67 "2026-11-08T13:58:18Z")
Same as many; wife, mine, childhood AND BEECHWOOD 4-5789. That’s an old song by the Marvelettes. ---
**Author:** ![Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiendish_astronaut/32/3295_2.png) [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2026, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-phone-numbers-do-you-have-memorized/1034616/68 "2026-11-08T14:05:39Z")
The only numbers I can remember are the house phone in the house I lived in when I was about 10, and my first ever mobile phone number. I can’t even remember my current mobile number. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2026, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-phone-numbers-do-you-have-memorized/1034616/69 "2026-11-08T17:30:14Z")
> [@Projammer](#): > > > [@SCAdian](#): > > > > (I also still remember his SSN > > Okay. Gotta ask why you knew, let alone memorized, your friend’s SSN. Were you helping him with job or loan applications? Don’t know if it still is, but the SSN was a required part of the address when writing to someone at a military installation. I learned his well before I memorised my own. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2026, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-phone-numbers-do-you-have-memorized/1034616/70 "2026-11-08T21:41:25Z")
Interesting. That was not USAF or Army practice in the 1980s, whether overseas or stateside. I have no clue about USN where you were. But I suspect it was a Navy / FPO-ism. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2026, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-phone-numbers-do-you-have-memorized/1034616/71 "2026-11-08T21:42:44Z")
And with a good-sized contingent of folks just barely getting by. ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2026, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-phone-numbers-do-you-have-memorized/1034616/72 "2026-11-09T00:51:50Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > That was not USAF or Army practice in the 1980s When I got my first license in the early 80’s, I was asked if I wanted to use my SSN as my license number. I declined as that struck even teenage me as a phenomenally bad idea. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2026, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-phone-numbers-do-you-have-memorized/1034616/73 "2026-11-09T00:55:06Z")
> [@Projammer](#): > > When I got my first license in the early 80’s, I was asked if I wanted to use my SSN as my license number. I declined as that struck even teenage me as a phenomenally bad idea. When I started college (University of Wisconsin-Madison) in '83, our student numbers were just our SSNs, with an extra “check digit” appended on the end. I guess it was sometime after the 1980s that people generally started to realize that using an SSN for general identification was a bad idea. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2026, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-phone-numbers-do-you-have-memorized/1034616/74 "2026-11-09T02:12:02Z")
> [@smithsb](#): > > That’s an old song by the Marvelettes. Paid tribute to by Wilson Pickett when he did **634-5789**. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-phone-numbers-do-you-have-memorized/1034616.md?page=3)