I was enjoying your show today (Aug 29, 2010) when you discussed a caller whose name, Scott, was often miss-given as Todd (or was it the other way around?). You asked if there were any other mis-called names, and my name is mis-called from time to time. By a count of about 20-to-1, I am most often mis-called Norm instead of Marv. I have always "written off" the mistake to the equal rarity of the two names. What do you think?
Hi, my name is Scott. I have, on countless occasions, introduced myself and been mistaken for Todd. I play golf, and many times on the first tee I have said "Hi, I'm Scott", and gotten the response, "Todd?" Or "Hi, Todd". I was just telling someone about this phenomenon the other day and was surprised to hear it on the show. I thought perhaps the confusion came from me mumbling or not speaking clearly.
Human memory is associative and lossy.
Our memories make associations for which there no logical explanation. The only explanation is that in our mind, the two buckets those words are in are very close to one another.
And lossy - we never remember everything about a person, name, event, etc. We define what is important to us, and our brain tries to preserve that information. It may throw out anything else to save space. It would be interesting to poll people who have never confused Todd and Scott. I think you will find that they are the people who have decided that getting names exactly right is very important to them.
My name is Pam. People frequently (on a second meeting, when they've been introduced to me but don't know me well yet) will call me Amy. I've started to say, "No, my name is Pam, but maybe I was meant to be called Amy, because when people get my name wrong that's what they call me." Just last week someone said to me, "Well, I was thinking it was a short 3 letter name...."
So maybe Todd was right about the double consonant thing. That people are remembering names by certain features, but more than one name can fit those features.
Interesting. I'm a Stephen, but now and then I hear my introduction back as "David?" Also interesting is that usage of lossy. Thanks, Norm, Todd, Amy, Teletubby.