Watching kids navigate through the big complex world is so much entertaining.
They start meeting new people, socializing with other kids and adults, learning how the social cues and norms work in practice from an early age.
That’s where things may get a teeny tiny bit confusing for the little ones. “My 8yo daughter met a girl at summer camp last year named ‘Internet.’ I said no way, that can’t be her name but my daughter has been adamant,” tweeted writer and mom Brianne M. Kohl and added that “For almost a year we’ve been having this discussion.”
That’s where things may get a teeny tiny bit confusing for the little ones. “My 8yo daughter met a girl at summer camp last year named ‘Internet.’ I said no way, that can’t be her name but my daughter has been adamant,” tweeted writer and mom Brianne M. Kohl and added that “For almost a year we’ve been having this discussion.”
Below we selected some of the most chuckle-worthy tweets that prove getting a name absurdly wrong is apparently a common occurrence in the children’s kingdom.
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Lynn How, the positivity coach, experienced educator and author of “Positive Young Minds” and this Facebook teacher coaching group told us that how hard it is for a child to get a stranger’s name right depends on the individual child and complexity of a name. “Young children are unable to form some sounds so end up calling people by a simpler name e.g. auntie Charlotte might become auntie Lot Lot. Children need repetition to store names in their memory so until a stranger becomes a friend, then it might be tricky to recall their name unless they have an amazing memory,” she explained.
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When asked how common naming mistakes are among adults and kids, Lynn said they’re very common, especially if we see someone out of context. “If I see a student in a shop, I might not be able to recall who they are even though I would in school,” she said.
Lynn continued: “Some people are better at recognizing faces, not names. If the name is unfamiliar and complex, it will be more challenging to recall it unless you have committed it to memory with a conscious effort. This can be tricky as people can be quite upset when you can’t remember! I try to get round this by not using their name when I greet them and ask questions that might give me hints without letting on!”
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According to Lynn, the best activity for remembering names on a recent course was to spend 45 minutes with each participant discussing the origin and importance of their names. “I embedded 15 names in my memory easily with this exercise—this has never happened before,” she laughed.
It’s no secret that parents and teachers mix up kids’ names very often. Lynn said that this is quite normal. She quoted Deffler, a cognitive scientist who states that, “It’s a normal cognitive glitch. It’s not related to a bad memory or to aging, but rather to how the brain categorizes names. It’s like having special folders for family names and friends names stored in the brain. When people used the wrong name, overwhelmingly the name that was used was in the same category, was in the same folder.”
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