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Comment by eb0la | Hacker News Reader

The moment you or your friends have kids, there are a lot of infrequent interactions with people and the names (and ages) really matter.

I guess the killing feature for me would be remembering names of parents if my kids schoolmates.

You end up calling people "the mother of $KID" for KID in kids in classOf($my_kids).

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I have a real lo-tech solution for that. I carry a bound memorandum book (field notes or the like) in my pocket and write down the everything I know about each kid. One kid per page.

Example: Julian, blonde, in same class, 3rd and 4th grade Sister: Kiera, two years younger, big hello kitty fan Mother: Monica, red hair, glasses. Dad: ??, looks like Ron Swanson.

I just fill in the blanks when I learn them. By the time I'm exchanging phone numbers, I usually have the names down.

Families move and friendships change, so I don't invest a lot of time memorizing details.

Really?? Why all the data recording? I'm not criticizing, I've just never paid that much attention to the families of my kid's friends. Get togethers just sort of naturally happen, and pertenent details of families of kids who my kid likes enough to hang out with a lot aren't that hard to remember.

What may be easy for you may be hard to impossible for other people.

I can't remember these people's names and I am definitely trying. Even worse is when I confidently use the wrong name when I'm talking to one of these parents. Conversation immediately ceases, it's so awkward that I mostly try not to use names at all.

There are some parents that I remember, I think because I see them often enough or they might be particularly unique looking (to me, anyway). There seems to be some mental bar that needs to be crossed before I can reliably recognize them, otherwise they all kind of blend together for me.

Per the memory crowd, associating characteristics with a person helps tag information in a retrievable fashion.

The characteristic doesn't have to be particularly representative, but the more extreme / emotional, the more effective.

E.g. remembering "Jim always has perfect Ron Swanson hair" helps in making the name itself memorable

I wish I did this. Your friends only tell you the name of their kids once. If they even remember without you prompting. And then time passes, you have interactions and it's too hard to ask: "hey remember your three year old daughter I've mailed christmas presents for...what's her name again?"

Why is it too hard to ask? That's just in your head. Especially if you're honest about being bad at names and make a little joke about it, 99 out of 100 people will just laugh and tell you the name.

Some people (including myself) just really really struggle with names. I've found that people who don't struggle with names don't quite understand how it just doesn't click for other people.

I have to write down the name of everyone I meet in a day and review it before I go to bed in order to even have a chance.

Plus, I have a paralyzing fear of using the wrong name so I don't practice that often unless I'm completely confident.

This needs to be said enough. On the other hand, remembering poems in school wasn't considered "easy" either, so I wonder why people think memory should easy for names, nor why it's a judgment on them that my memory isn't great — I'm agonizing ten times over not remembering, I should be the one hurting lol (definitely am).

It's like numbers. I remember IP addresses and breadcrumbs better/longer than I should, and why is obvious (sysops, web dev, nerd?)

When you spend some time at the playground with your kids, you need to keep track. Otherwise you're telling your spouse "That lady with the shoulder length black hair said 'hi.'"

To be honest, I learned this tip when I worked at a large international organization, and I needed to familiarize myself with a large number of new people quickly.

I would be slightly worried about walking around with a notebook containing the physical attributes of lots of young children. But then again I'm a single 39 year old man.

or worse, the physical attributes of their parents. even if expressed in a seemingly positive light.

Hahah that would be bad particularly in your situation.

A computer filled with the same data is even worse!

I think I’m my parents’ generation this anxiety may have been well placed but today we are all so information-addled that the rules are quite bent. I see parents in my child’s school and activities and hang onto the names of only a few. Everyone seems genuinely unembarrassed to be reintroduced once in a while.

As kids get older and friendships more solid, I can see this changing.

turns out it does not really matter. i either call people so-and-so’s mom, or i simply ask them to remind me their name. it turns out it’s not a social faux pas to not know the names of your kid’s friend’s parents. it’s common and forgiven.

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