I am bad with names - comversely i am good with faces. I might recognize everybody I’ve ever met, faces stick in my head, but I won’t know their names. A friend of a friend used to nail me on this - whenever I’d see him, he’d geet my with “Don’t know my name do you?”. I knew he was Steve’s cousin, but his name…
“People who have trouble with names tend to be shy and less comfortable in social settings.”
Not I. i am gregarious and social and enjoy having a room’s entire attention. I am however, bad with names.
I’m good with names and good with faces, but bad at putting them together. For instance, if I am trying to come up with an actor’s name I try to visualize it written, like in a cast list or on a poster, because if I pull up their face first I always lose the name. I don’t know if some may not be job-related - among my other duties is contract and payroll at a place that brings in about 200 seasonal staff for a few weeks every year. I’ve seen and written names several times before I’ve put a face to them. Or in the case of a movie or TV show, I’ll see the face several times before learning the name, so I have a problem syncing the two.
Yeah, I don’t remember names easily either.
But I must ask, is it common to be “good” with names?
That is, do most people easily remember people’s names the first time they meet them?
I am a heavily visual person. A lot of language stuff is difficult for me.
So, I’m watching a show and I can easily recognize an actor from something else. But I rarely remember the actor’s name, the name of the previous character (assuming a long running role), etc.
I also note goofs quite easily, but not dialogue that I found interesting and want to retain for later.
I, OTOH, am surprised by how most people don’t remember things they see very well.
Names are just a subset of language.
Somehow this doesn’t affect me doing crosswords all that much. Sometimes I draw a blank on a word, but after putting it aside, I can usually come up with it later.
I call it my “noun block”. Frequently I am unable to remember the name of a person or object, I can describe many other things, like where I saw them/it, what the circumstances were, what they said, what it looked like; but damned if I can put a label to it/them.
Frustrated by this, I started researching. Wiki lists it as Anomic Aphasia, that is usually caused by damage to the parietal or temporal brain lobes.
Now, I’ve had several concussions, most not too bad, but I am sure it’s just my stupid brain not acting right. It gets worse with stress, like social occasions.