Why Do We Forget Names?

Struggling to recall a name or calling someone the wrong name is common —and usually not worrisome

Liz Szabo,

AARP

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En español

Published July 23, 2024

illustration of a brain covered in sticky notes with people's names on them

Photo Collage: AARP (Source: Getty Images(2))

Many people can remember being called by the wrong name as a kid, often by an exhausted mother who ran through the names of every creature in the household — including the family dog — until hitting the name she meant to say in the first place.

As adults, people often repeat the same mistakes, calling one child or grandchild by the name of another.

Does this mean we’re cracking up?

Not at all.

“It’s completely normal to mix up names, especially within categories of related names,” such as children’s names, says Neil Mulligan, professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

In a study led by Samantha Deffler, an associate professor of psychology at York College of Pennsylvania, and her colleagues, researchers found that about half of college students interviewed reported being called the wrong name by someone familiar to them. In 95 percent of those cases, the naming mistake was made by a family member.

Parents and grandparents aren’t the only ones who slip up. In the study, 38 percent of students also reported having called a familiar person by the wrong name, most often a family member.

You don’t have to be a scientist to notice a pattern here.

When we call someone by the wrong name, we typically use the name of a similar or related person, such as a family member or close friend. That’s because “the brain stores information in networks” of related terms, says Judith Heidebrink, M.D., a research professor of Alzheimer’s disease, a professor of neurology and co-division chief of the cognitive disorders program at the University of Michigan Medical School.

“You’re much more likely to substitute names that sound similar or that are tied into a category in the strongest way,” Heidebrink says.

Deffler’s study uncovered other patterns about our verbal blunders. For example, the people making the mistakes are almost always older than the people they misname, who tend to be people that the speakers see frequently. Women were slightly more likely than men to mix up names, as well as report having their own names mixed up.

Mood can affect our memory too, says Deffler.

More than 40 percent of the time, study participants reported that the person mixing up the name was tired, frustrated or angry. Trying to juggle multiple tasks at once likely increases the odds of making a naming mistake, Deffler said.

Deffler’s study also suggests that dogs have a special place in their families.

Although participants in Deffler’s study were as likely to own cats as dogs, people reported that their parents rarely confused children’s names with those of the family feline. But parents did sometimes mix up the names of their kids and canines.

Inside the brain’s filing cabinet

Many people have trouble remembering names. Research shows that people are more likely to remember a person’s occupation than name, Mulligan says.

And while naming errors are some of the most obvious memory mistakes we make, our brain actually substitutes one word for another all the time, Mulligan said.

Often, that’s because our brain is scrambling to retrieve words quickly enough to keep pace with a conversation.

While we’re chatting away, our brain is working frantically behind the scenes, scanning through a list of potential answers, Mulligan says. The process involves calling up the words we want and rejecting those we don’t.

As part of the normal aging process, people lose some of the dexterity with which they once suppressed unwanted words. That can cause people to make more verbal gaffes, Mulligan says.

When we ask our brain to retrieve information, we send it cues or specifications, such as “an adjective to describe my neighbor’s Great Dane.” But those instructions may not be precise enough for our brain to locate the word we really want. Instead, our brain may select a related word, Mulligan said.

For example, a person searching for the word “gigantic” to describe that Great Dane may instead come out with the word “huge.”

“The listener may not even realize I had a small glitch in memory retrieval, because my response is still perfectly understandable,” Mulligan says.

Cause for concern

It can be frustrating to find that we can’t recall a specific name that’s on the tip of the tongue.

In many cases, however, our brain keeps plugging away on the problem, long after we’ve forgotten about our memory lapse. That’s why people may recall a forgotten word a short time later, when the word suddenly pops into our mind, Heidebrink says. “Even though you’re not consciously thinking about it, your brain is still working,” she adds.

Both younger and older adults are better at recognizing names than recalling them, Mulligan says. Although many people forget the name of a former neighbor or Hollywood celebrity, they instantly recognize the name when reminded by a friend.

Heidebrink says such memory lapses are concerning if the speaker, even when prompted, can’t remember the person at all — as if the name for which they’re searching is not just delayed, but completely gone.

And while mixing up names may be more common in older people, Heidebrink says there’s good reason for that.

“As we age, we have more names to keep track of,” Heidebrink says. “It’s not a sign of impending dementia.”

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