My mom starts out by naming the pets, then their species and runs through my brothers names before she gets to mine. I’m the youngest of three (closest brother is 10 years older) and the last to leave home.
Another Dad here. I do it to my two girls all the time. One’s 10 and one’s two, so there’s really no excuse, but I do it.
My mum used to do it to my brother and I all the time.
What’s probably worse is that my MIL does it to her kids as well. One’s a boy and one’s a girl (my wife), so that’s even worse.
For years it used to piss me off no end that my mum would call me Sue or Vicki, (never my own name) as I was the youngest of three girls.
Now I’ve got four of me’ own, and I too do it all the time. If I’m yelling, it always ends up being ‘Hewie’ because he is normally the culprit, even when it might be Jem or Tim or Pip playing up. It’s just the loss of brain cells that occurs when you have kids.
My SO’s mum mixes up the names of her son and her husband.
Paging Dr Freud…
My parents tend to mix my kid sister, me, and each other together.
Luckily, I don’t do that, to family or friends.
LOL, Kittenblue! ← see? 
Muffin: “Hi Dad!”
Dad: “Who the hell are you?”
Muffin: “I’m your son.”
Dad: “No, you’re not. This is my son.”
Dad then held up the family cat.
We have a son and a daughter, and I sometimes mess up their names…not when I’m calling them, but when I’m talking to them.
It’s like I’m not interested in who I’m talking to but making sure the chore gets done and I don’t care who does it.
Now, what’s funny is my husband will call me by his younger sister’s name when we’re over at his parents’s house. Explain that family dynamic!!
No. We have two children, eight years apart, and different sexes, so it’s not real difficult keeping them straight.
My mother, on the other hand, has always done this.
Five children, four boys and a girl, named alphabetically (honest).
She used to run down the list whenever she was calling one of us boys, sounding like a Southern version of Porky Pig: “Al…Cr…Dave…EDWARD!!!”
She still does this, mixing the youngest and the oldest, since they both play guitar, and the middle with the youngest, probably because they are the tallest. And she mixes my daughter up with her cousin, who is a year younger, but lives half a globe away, and is about 18 inches taller.
Either my mother is very confused or she just hasn’t been paying attention the last 50 years.
I’ve got 2 children, a boy and a girl same age. This is me trying to call them:
“Ebs-Jus. . . You know who you are!”
Goes off wonder if Muffin’s dad is Charleston Heston or if he’s the son of a former president.
I have one sister and we have horses at home. Both parents do the name every name they can think of game and my name is always last after sisters, both horses names, friend at the stables, her horses name then mine.
It was just easier when I lived at home to answer to what ever name was mentioned so long as they were looking at me and then correct them through gritted teeth.
But now I live in a different country and I phone home regularly they still do it on the phone so I give up after 25 years of not knowing my name I figure they will never know it.
I don’t remember either of my parents doing this but I do it all the time with my three girls. I have a good friend who also has three girls and she does too. I have been known to call them by my friend’s children’s names, as has she.
I have two kids. One of them is a Caucasian girl. The other is an Asian boy. Pretty difficult to get them confused.
Still manage to occationally call them by the wrong names.
Happens most often when I expect to be yelling at one of them for something - and its the other one doing the behavior. My son tends to wander - so I yell for him to get back in the yard. If its my daughter out of the yard, I still yell for him - its his behavior. My daughter tends to get very emotional. So if I’m asking my son to get a grip, its often done using his sisters name. But it happens other times as well.
(Hey, its better than when I call my husband by my ex-husband’s name).
It probably isn’t ALL mothers - but it is probably far more mothers than not (and father’s too, my grandfather’s mind was clear as a bell until he died at 83, and he still called his kids by the wrong name - did so my whole life. And never kept his grandkids straight. Loved us dearly, wonderful man. But I’d answer to any grandkids name if he was looking at me.)
I guess family names just get stored in the same small compartment in the brain, and when you need one, the brain just pulls up the first one that’s handy.
My mom did this to me and my sister, and to my two brothers–luckily for us, she didn’t get the gender confused, although my fiance tells me his mom frequently called him by a sister’s name. My dad also told me about either his father or mother, I forget which, running down the list of names. “Donnie, uh, Wally, uh, Hughie, uh [lastname], whatever your name is!”
Hey. I never forget my kids’ names!
What I forget is which kid belongs to which name
Ooh, I almost forgot…when I was in high school, I had a math teacher who had also taught my sister a few years before, and who sang in the church choir with my older brother. Being called by my sister’s name was not unusual…we sort of look alike (tho I’m much cuter!), but one day in class this teacher called me “Tom”.
The worst part was I knew exactly who he meant and answered without hesitation. Then I realized the rest of the class was looking around, confused, because there was no one named Tom in our class, and then more confused that I had answered.
Rest in peace, Mr. Barker.
I’m considering just changing my name is Les-Bailie (Older sis is Leslie). That seems to be what everyone in my family thinks it is.
Well, then again maybe I won’t.
My parents always called us by the wrong names, esp. the three boys who were all close in age. “Jeff-Tomm-no Jimmy!” My sister was always being called by my name, and I didn’t even live at home anymore.
I have only one child so far, and call her by my younger sister’s name all the time. Younger sister was born when I was 14, so I took care of her a lot, and I guess that comes out sometimes. It’s pretty hard on sister, who is sometimes sitting there inoffensively when I yell her name.
My mom will go through a few of her sisters’ names, the dog’s name, and sometimes my brother’s name before she gets to me. Sorry, don’t take it personally or anything.
My mother (RIP) always got our names mixed up, but she usually got the right gender. (She had 3 boys and 3 girls)
The middle brother (I’m the youngest) sometimes calls me by his son’s name and vica-versa.
(Terry/Kevin)/Brian
Constantly.
I just accepted that my name was Emily-lauren-alicewhoeveryouare.
What’s even more fun is when my grandparents call my sister by my mom’s name.