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Comment by mej10 | Hacker News Reader

It is very common (especially as you get older) to mix up names for people that are in the same mental category while you are speaking. It isn't necessarily thoughtlessness. Sometimes our brains just don't work quite right.

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My parents and several schoolteachers often called me by my older brother's name, or called my sisters by one anothers' names. It's not as though my parents couldn't tell their own children apart, it's just that sometimes saying a name is an autopilot thing.

I recently took a friend to the grocery store, and called her son by my son's name when I wanted him to move out of the way of someone else's cart.

I often call my own kids by the wrong names, and they look nothing alike and one is half as hold as the other. I also tell them to wash their teeth and brush their hands on occasion, too. Frequency of these kinds of brain mistakes seem to correlate with stress or how much in a hurry I am.

yup. I have four kids, two sisters and a partner.

Sometimes I need to work through ALL the names to get to the right one..

pap...hil...sam...ji...joan..KIM could you please....

Haha, we have the same in our house sometimes! I think I've even heard the dog's name thrown in there.

Eventually you narrow it down to the right kid, right name :)

My mother frequently has to cycle through my brothers/my fathers name before getting to mine.

Its the times when she starts using the cats name I get a little miffed.

WHOA. I just wrote almost the same comment before seeing yours:

> My mother is known for cycling through names before hitting the right one.

> I was frequently addressed as "Hershey-Chris-Patrick" while living at home.

My parents will start with my brother's name first before getting to me, but I've also heard them make the same, inverse mistake with my brother. I have to imagine this is only a same-sex issue right? No one mixes up their daughter and son's names?

My mother occasionally uses the cat's name. The cat's name! We're both male, but still

Nope, my grandma would cycle through random children and grandchildren of either gender before she'd get to me. I always thought this was unique until I read these comments today.

No, it happens with my parents. My sister and I are many years apart though, and once I went to college there was only one kid in the house, so I can kinda understand.

sheepish I do, but not often, and usually only when I'm trying to get them each to do things like clean up a room or fold laundry, or do X/Y/Z before dinner. Even as I say it I notice it, and wonder where the heck that came from.

... as ANY parent with more that 1 child can attest to ;)

Though it's not limited to children. I'm thinking of assuming officially my uncles first name as one of my midnames, given half the family calls me with that.

Indeed. "Wives and long-term girlfriends" is a large category for me. It's easy to keep major events straight. But often, I'll be talking about some film that I've seen, and can't remember which of them I saw it with. Or who I did what with on which trip to Amsterdam. It doesn't help that some of their names are similar.

> It is very common (especially as you get older) to mix up names for people that are in the same mental category while you are speaking

Exactly this. My mother calls me by my dead brother's name all the time. I'm pretty sure if anyone was aware of his death, she would be (given she was with him at the time).

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