What's In A Name? Turns Out, I Don't Care.
Irradiated by LabRat
Via Isis the Scientist, an interesting post at Behind the Stick on memory, faces, and how we remember them. Hint out the gate: it’s generally not by name.
Names? That’s a different story. If I don’t write the names at the top of the tabs of the people who don’t come in often, Ben will invariably become Barney, Joan will be addressed as Janet, and Luke will morph into Lenny or freaking Aloysius! Which brings me (maybe) to a theory on how this all works.
See, a drink somehow carries a built-in identity, it pigeonholes the person who is ordering, and when the person orders that drink an association is made. She’s a Sapphire and tonic, he’s a Johnny Black rocks… painting an image more vivid than Janet or Lenny. For you don’t actually “make” something based on a person’s name, it’s just a handle in the ether, but you do make something based on the name of a drink. You perform a thirty second task matching face with that task. And it sticks. At least that’s how I figure it, else how can a guy who can’t find his keys two or three times a day, do the stuff I just stated with any regularity?
He may be a bartender rather than a clinical psychologist or a neurologist, but I think he’s on the money. Unless you’re in a business where names carry a great deal of weight all on their own, such as show business or sales, when you meet somebody, their name is usually not anywhere near the top ten relevant things about who they are. If you’re a scientist, as Isis points out, what someone’s name is is forgettable unless they’re associated with some important or controversial development or theory- it’s what they’ve been doing recently in the field that stands out. Being known chiefly by name might not even necessarily a good thing- because it could be that you’re being remembered not for the work you’ve done, (in which case you’d be something like the “flagellar motor protein guy”), but for the drama you’ve caused within that social and professional circle. Likewise, when I’ve worked with animals or just done that animal-person thing where you congregate in dog parts or pet stores, I almost never remember anyone’s name- but I sure as hell remember their cat or dog’s name, breed, personality, and history, because that’s the part that’s actually going to be relevant to me in that setting. It’s not really going to matter except as a point of etiquette whether someone’s name is Mary or Marianne and if they’re Democrat or Republican or have a fear of bees or what, but what name the animal will respond to and whether or not it’s fearful or aggressive or somnolent is going to be vital to the next series of interactions I’m going to have.
It gets even more interesting in the blogging world, in which names really ARE a currency- but not necessarily your *real name* unless you choose for it to be. While I blog more or less pseudonomysly, at this point a hell of a lot of the blogging community that I actually interact with does know my real name- but the only people know it and who actually CALL me by it in e-mail or in chat or even to my face are either the people who are in a business that requires a lot of interaction in which remembering people’s names IS important, or the people going out of their way to be polite. (With one or two exceptions. Get out of my way, I’m generalizing here.) Just about everyone who does have reason to know my real name address me as Lab or LR or Rat- because that’s the relevant part of my identity in the blogosphere. Even if I started signing my real name to all comments starting tomorrow forevermore, it’d take ages for people to notice and properly associate that name with me, even with full intellectual knowledge of who I “really” am in the “real” world. Likewise, of those blog friends I have who write under a pseudonym but whose real (and totally nonrelated names) I know, I still think of them by their blogname rather than their legal ones.
In bars, I’m the whiskey sour lady. At the vet’s office, I’m the woman attached to Kang and Kodos, the good-natured red Akitas. Around here, I’m an anthropomorphic rat in a lab coat. Who are you?
July 20th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
I’m just me.
July 20th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
A raving lunatic who swings uncontrollably from far right conservatism to hard anarcho-capitalism … those swings entirely depending on who pissed me off the most last.
July 20th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
I used to be the quirky scientist who was into dogs.
Now I’m the crazy dog lady who’s into science. EVERYONE in town knows me, but hardly anyone knows my name. Thank doG I took “Smart Dogs” as my business name - this means that at least I get to be known as the smart dog lady instead of the waggy, wiggly dog lady or the grande dog lady (my local ‘competitors’).
July 20th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
Firearms instructors talking about the class after everyone leaves at the end of the day rarely use people’s names. Instead they refer to, “that young guy with the single action revolver at the end of the line” or “the older woman with the airweight snubby.”
Me? People in real life generally don’t notice or remember me. I’m invisible…
July 20th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
I’m the girl with the shockingly filthy sense of humor, the poorly controlled temper, and the thoroughly solid track record that lets her get away with A and B.
I’m also a beef teriyaki to go, a medium veggie soup, a Guinness, and a phad thai with tofu. (Not all at the same time.)
July 21st, 2009 at 3:04 am
I’m the long-haired blonde (down to my hips when it’s loose) Earth Mother type with glasses. Reading an ebook on her cell phone. Or the Peachtree Tea (Long Island Iced Tea made with peach schnapps instead of Triple Sec). That drink will seriously mess you up, if you’re not careful.
July 21st, 2009 at 5:29 am
I’m the crazy massage lady. And Tucker and Harley’s “mom”. Sometimes even both at the same time!
And I’m always Christina, just sometimes with the “LMT” added.
I met two bloggers who go by pseudonyms online, and I had the hardest time calling them by their real names. I’m afraid you’ll always be LabRat to me.
July 21st, 2009 at 7:45 am
A couple of months ago I was invited to the house of a friend whom I’ve known, till that day, under a moniker “baby raccoon”, or “baby_r”. And not that her online persona was very different from the real one, but every once in a while in the conversation I’d habitually call her Baby R, instead of Reggie. Her three kids were dying of laughter, especially the Youngest. In her mind, it’s Goddess Almighty mommy, not some “baby”, R or no R…
July 21st, 2009 at 7:59 am
Back in the days when the Chase Lounge was open and we used to do on-line chats, I saw your name once as La Brat. I attribute this to momentary dyslexia, too many drinks, or possibly a spontaneous brain leap toward the obvious.
July 21st, 2009 at 8:53 am
In the BBS days I was introduced to people as Tomcat instead of my real name.
I got a lot of very weird looks form parents. Especially the parents of the girls of the group. That was fun!
My online persona has shrunk over the years oddly enough. The intertubes are growing and growing, and I don’t have any more intimate places to call my hangout.
Ahh well.
July 21st, 2009 at 9:17 am
You know, it’s funny you should talk about this - I was just thinking today about the number of people that “call me Ahab” vs. those that use my real name. I used Ahab as blagname for so long that there are plenty of people who don’t make the connection between me as Caleb and me as Ahab.
July 21st, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Oh, that was a common topic of conversation at CCA. Me and Shannon the gunsmith were both really bad with names, but…
Sales Clerk: “Joe Blow was in here and asked to speak with you.”
Me: “Who?”
Sales Clerk: “The guy who brought in that busted revolver last week…?”
Me: “Oh, the old guy with the early no-dash Bodyguard Airweight that cracked its frame!”
July 21st, 2009 at 12:46 pm
And what I am is grateful, Lab Rat, for your linking to my site. I really appreciate it. “Cheers” from my place to yours!
Scribbler
July 21st, 2009 at 9:18 pm
According to Alan, I’m a sidekick in desperate need of a superhero. In reality I’m just a gun guy with too much Internet time on his hands, and not enough time on his guns.
July 21st, 2009 at 11:29 pm
I’m “the cute blond pilot”, pre-war Taylorcraft restoration, tom yum gai, 16oz soy zen chai, Busted Shoulder can’t shoot more than .22, or weird physical therapy workout who’ll just set her own weights. Online, I’m either my screen name, or, inevitably on the pilot forums, the Alaskan Woman Pilot, as though my gender and locale should attribute extra wisdom or craziness.
I dislike the nickname form of my legal name, but note with resigned disgust that almost everybody refers to me by that nickname no matter how I introduce myself - being thin, short, and physically fragile, people think of and refer to me in the diminutive.
July 22nd, 2009 at 12:46 pm
I’m also a Knobb Creek, neat
July 23rd, 2009 at 6:47 am
I’m the picture beside the word “curmudgeon” in the dictionary.
I’m “that guy who plays that weird 9 string guitar”.
I’m a “Tullamore Dew and water”.
July 23rd, 2009 at 7:03 am
At work I’m the “(product name) guy”; out and about I’m “the guy with the tiny car”.
July 25th, 2009 at 3:28 am
Sadly, I’m reduced to “the guy with the size 18 feet.”
And, “That big cop.”
And Christina? After learning LabRat’s real name, I’ve had to carefully censor my tendency to start to type it in these responses. That’s who she is, to me. Weird, huh?