Do You Always Forget Names? Psychologists Explain Why It’s Almost Never a Memory Problem

Forgetting names is a common experience, not a sign of a failing brain, but rather a byproduct of how our brains prioritize meaning over arbitrary labels. This phenomenon is often a retrieval failure, where information is stored but temporarily blocked, or an encoding failure due to divided attention during introductions. Stress and cognitive offloading also contribute to name recall difficulties.