Playing the name game

Don’t you hate the name game?

You know the one. When you should know the name of someone you’re talking to, but you’ve forgotten it and it feels awkward to ask.

Or you never took the time to find it out in the first place.

Who wants to admit: “I know we’ve been talking off and on for the past two years but I don’t really know who you are.”

Then there are times when you have to have to introduce two people but you don’t know the name of one of them.

In those cases I’ve often taken the, “Do you two know each other?” approach, step back, and hope that they’ll look after the introductions themselves.

But in all honesty, what is so wrong with admitting to someone that you’ve forgotten their name?

Because of this job a lot of people know my name. It comes with the territory when people have read it every week over a 30-year period.

Once, years ago, I asked a young cousin what his teacher’s first name was. He looked at me and said, “Mrs.” Okay, not so helpful.

COVID has also complicated things. We’ve been masked for a long time so often we only see a partial part of a person’s face. One day last year I was in a store and someone started talking to me. He kept calling me by my first name. I didn’t reciprocate but instead told him, “Oh, I didn’t recognize you with your mask.”

When he left the cashier mentioned to me how hard it

“A trick of the trade at work when I’ve forgotten someone’s name is to ask them, ‘And how do you spell your first and last name?’ You hope their response isn’t, ‘Bill Smith.’”

is to recognize people when they’re wearing masks. I fessed up and told her that even if that person had been maskless I still wouldn’t have had a clue who he was.

And I certainly had no idea what his name was.

When my kids were younger, often you only knew a person by who their child was. You didn’t know their first name so instead they were so-and-so’s mom, or soand-so’s dad.

During one of our summer soccer leagues one year there was a dad whose name I didn’t know. For weeks he kept calling me by my first name and I hated that I couldn’t do the same and I was too embarrassed to admit it.

It’s funny how in those situations we’ll ask other people for the person’s name instead of just asking the person themselves. One day I asked another soccer mom and three other soccer dads if they knew the fellow’s name. Three of them didn’t. One knew but forgot.

A trick of the trade at work when I’ve forgotten someone’s name is to ask them, “And how do you spell your first and last name?” You hope their response isn’t, “Bill Smith.”

Once I asked someone how they spelled their last name and they said, “The same way you do Tina.”

Yup, their last name was Comeau.

But at a soccer game you’re not apt to ask someone for the spelling of their name so one day, weeks into the season, I just finally said to the guy, “I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.”

“It’s James,” he said. I looked at the one soccer mom and three dads standing behind him and told them all, “It’s James, folks.”

Long ago I turned over a new leaf, if you look familiar but I don’t know who you are I’m going to ask you outright. No more spending hours at home later in the evening wondering if you were who I think you were.

So don’t be offended if we’ve known each other for years and I suddenly look at you and say, “Who are you?”

After all, it’s better to say, “Hello James,” instead of just “Hello.”