How often, while you were growing up, did your mom call you by your sibling's name? And how often do you find yourself doing the same now? This is a weird phenomenon, because you'd associate forgetfulness with unfamiliarity — and that's definitely not something you could accuse mothers of.
But misnaming isn't a result of poor memory, frazzled mom syndrome, the two people looking alike, the similarity of the names that are confused and misused, or even because they're straight up not that important to you.
Sorry, Ron Swanson. You're way off base here.
Misnaming is actually a sign of love. Calling someone you're close to by the name of someone else you're close to is actually a sign that you care for them dearly, according to an investigation published in the journalMemory & Cognition.
The researchers (all current or former members of the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University) conducted five studies and spoke with over 1,700 participants to examine the so-called "misnaming phenomenon" among familiar individuals. They reached their conclusion after observing that misnaming typically happens "within a social group." With moms, this means that they typically call their child by their sibling's name – not the name of a random kid down the block who sorta looks like them, or someone they saw on TV.
This is thanks to the way our minds store people's names and information about them, according to the report. The brain uses a "semantic network" (essentially, a filing system) where similar or related information is stored "next to" each other. So when your brain is looking for your firstborn Tommy's name so you can holler at him to put away his laundry, it might accidentally pull the wrong "file" from the "family folder" and out comes your other son Joey's name.
Of course, this phenomenon isn't exclusive to parents. The researchers even cite one of the most infamous pop culture examples of misnaming – Ross saying Rachel instead of Emily during his wedding vows in Friends.
So don't worry, your #mombrain is failing you if you can't keep your kids' or friends' names straight. "It's a normal cognitive glitch," researcher Samantha Deffler assured NPR during a January interview about the study. Deffler, too, reported that her own mother used to mess up her siblings' names – with even the family dog's name thrown in. Gotta love those fur babies.
(h/t Babble)
