Telling people apart

[linguoboy]

In my milieu, family names tend to be diverse and given names much less so. As social interaction becomes more informal, this is increasingly problematic. It is perfectly possible to see someone socially for years and know quite a bit about them--their birthplace, their romantic history, their likes and dislikes--and yet still not not know their surname. What strategies do you all use when you find yourself in this situation? Here are a few of mine:

1. Associated place: Could be city/state of origin, place of work or residence, or even just someplace they visit/talk about often. (For instance, we just nicknamed someone "Japanese Andrew" because he lived there before and speaks the language.) Around here we even use the names of high-rise apartment buildings, e.g. "Malibu East Dave".

2. Associated person: Generally a romantic pairing, e.g. "Gwyn's [husband] David". It's interesting how this can make two generic names suddenly specific, e.g. "Jim of Jim and Dave". (You may know lots of Jims and lots of Daves but only one couple comes to mind for "Jim and Dave".)

3. Associated quality: Historically, this was probably the most common method, but people I know don't use it much any more (perhaps the qualities are disproportionately negative ones and people have grown more sensitive). We knew one couple we called "the Two Jims" which we distinguished as "Young Jim" and "Old Jim".

4. Profession: Again, once more frequent than it is now. In an academic context, could even be a field of study, e.g. "Religious Studies Cate".

My spouse doesn't have a particularly good memory for people he's met only a few times so sometimes I find myself just spewing associations in the hopes a bell will ring, e.g. "You know, Tony. Bus driver? Goatee? From Indiana? Used to be roommates with Tommy?"

[Levike]

Since there everyone is either Hungarian or Romanian
there's not much problem about names.

But we use the things you enumerated, maybe quality or looks the most.

[linguoboy]

Since there everyone is either Hungarian or Romanian there's not much problem about names.

Can you elabourate? My impression of Hungarians at least is that they also have a fairly small store of common given names.

[Levike]

Yes it's small, but it never made any problems.
We didn't get to a point of "who is who".

In my classroom there were 3 people with the name Levente.

I was called Maier. (my family name)
The second one Barabas. (his family name)
The third one Zsombi. (his second given name)

[md0]

I think you covered the most common methods here.

Associated place

Yup. That's common here in the semi-rural areas, where communities are quite small.

Associated person

That as well.
What I noticed is that the general trend of men and women having segregated friend circles shows up here.
Because men will define the guy by something else than his wife (for example, they'll use his job), who they might not even know.
And women will define the man by his wife, who they probably know better.
Men will define the woman by her husband, and women will define the woman by some other trait, like her job, or assosiated place, because it's less likely to know her husband.

Associated quality

Yeah. People are a bit more sensitive today, but some will still use that designation even when they are in front of the person. They wouldn't use Andri the Schizo, but Andri the Fatty is not seen as too insulting yet. "If her peers judge her as fat, she has to take it"

Profession

That too.
I have to offer some variations here. The rank of someone in their job sometimes. Even if you are not working with them, but you happen to know that, eg Maria is the manager there.

[OldBoring]

Examples from my experience:

- Place
In my family there is an uncle I should call 三姨夫 ("Third uncle" - to be more specific: my mom's 3rd sisters's husband) according the traditional Chinese system; but instead we call him 下村舅舅 ("Uncle of the lower village") because all my family was from the "upper village" (higher in the mountain) and only he is from the "lower village". 舅舅 instead of 姨夫 because he's also my mom's cousin, as in our village it was common to marry between cousins.

In Chinese universities all foreign students (I also count as one) are put together in classes; so here it's extremely common to say "that Korean guy", "that Thai girl", etc.

My mom uses an Italian name "Angela", and to specify "Angela the Chinese".

- Nicknames based on appearance
In Italy, among my friends, a tall and thin guy is called "Palo" (pole).
In my college here in China a short and fat girl is called 糖葫芦.

- Nicknames based on behaviour
My mom calls a childhood friend 哭猫 (crying cat) because he cried a lot.
My dad when kid was called 白糖小孩 (sugar kid) because he loved to eat everything with sugar.

- Age
In an English school here in China two girls had the same English name: Michelle. The younger one was called 小米 (Little Mi, abbr. of Michelle) and the older one 大米 (Big Mi).

- Profession
Many. "Mario the accountant". "Messina the lawyer".

Incomplete list.

[Johanna]

Well... depends on the setting and it's very much individual.

Kids in school (first six years at least) are often confined to 'Givenname X', 'X' being the first letter of their surname. Nicknames do occur, but they're mostly based on the first name anyway, so that doesn't help.

Age 13-16 is different, then guy's sharing their given names often get called by their last names or nicknames derived thereof. Girls... not sure to be honest, for one there seems to be more girls' names than guys' names in popular use, so it comes up a lot less often. Back when I was that age we "graduated" to full surnames though, I became 'Johanna Eriksson' instead of just 'Johanna E', but that was 1998-2001, so it's not exactly recent.

When I got to secondary education (age 16 to 19) I was in a class with a lot of people sharing the same first name. So it was pretty much a jungle... Everything from "Aight" (the guy liked to say "alright" in that manner a lot) via "Jo" (my namesake, but she dropped out during the first year), via nicks based on the given name, to those based on the surname, to "Givenname Surname". To be honest, to remember all the names and nicknames, I would have to contact old classmates since there were like 4 people called X, 2 called Y, 2 called Z, etc.

[Levo]

Yes it's small, but it never made any problems.
We didn't get to a point of "who is who".

In my classroom there were 3 people with the name Levente.

What??? In Hungary it's a really rare name at my age! I was always alone, there was one year when there was another Levente and it was a phenomenon to our environment too, especially that we became friends.

Same with a collegue of mine much later.
Are there so many Leventes in Székelyföld?

I was called Maier. (my family name)
The second one Barabas. (his family name)
The third one Zsombi. (his second given name)

Lol, at my school, there was a boy called "Vadász Zsombor Levente" - one of my best friends is Zsombor, so we remembered this one.

[Levo]

It is perfectly possible to see someone socially for years and know quite a bit about them--their birthplace, their romantic history, their likes and dislikes--and yet still not not know their surname.

Linguoboy! It's a very interesting dilemma on its own.
I have just this impression of big-city people and in general, many "Western" people. (Yeah, you guys can hate me more and more for using that word ).
At least in Hungary, such relations are not too typical. Everyone has some like that, but it's just not typical. I know a lot about the life of the local shopkeeper at the bakery too though we have no other contacts. It's more typical here.
And because of this, people holding a lot of contacts like you describe above, seem kind of shallow to us.
I don't want to judge these people, rather try to understand them:

I also tried to understand that the phenomen you describe above might come from the fact, that as far as I hear and know, travelling and moving is fiscally possible and no big deal in the luckier countries. So, it can lead to a lot of shallow relations in life, when one hasn't got enough time to get to know the others more properly. And the other big reason might be mass immigration in those countries. Everything and everyone is so diverse.
That's how I can imagine the whole situation...

[linguoboy]

I have just this impression of big-city people and in general, many "Western" people.

Yeah, it is very much a big-city phenomenon. The population of the Chicago metropolitan area is almost exactly equal to that of your entire country. I meet dozens of new people every year, and it's impossible to know which of those I'm likely to run into again, let alone hit it off with and form some sort of relationship. So it simply makes practical sense to keep initial contacts shallow until you find some kind of compelling reason to increase your personal investment. We do have good friends, too, but they're very few compared to the number of people we know and find pleasant to interact with (or find unpleasant but have no choice but to interact with).