I Can't Remember Names | Motohiro Tsuchiya, Vice-President / Professor, Graduate School of Media and Governance
2025.07.15
In academia, they say that if you can't recall someone's name, you can get by just by calling them "Professor." This might also be the case in the legal and medical worlds. I wish I could remember names, but I feel like I'm forgetting them more and more often.
Worried that my memory might be declining, I mentioned this to a politician, who told me, "That's because the number of people you interact with has increased. As a Vice-President, you're dealing with people in the thousands, aren't you? For politicians, it's in the tens of thousands, so it's really tough." While I can't imagine myself remembering the names and faces of a thousand people, I probably should remember a few hundred.
On top of that, foreign names are difficult. European, Chinese, Korean—they are all hard. Names from Arab and African cultures are difficult to remember, starting with their very naming conventions. There are people I meet several times a year, so I remember their faces to some extent, but I find myself struggling, thinking, "Oh, what was this person's name again?"
And they probably don't remember my name either. For foreigners, my name is long and difficult to pronounce. I can't help but be envious of my colleague's name, Ken Jimbo. Ken is a common name in the English-speaking world, and Jimbo is probably easy for foreigners to remember too. People who speak European languages can't read or pronounce a name like Tsuchiya. I've even been called "Tchu-chai-ya" (though people from China and Korea pronounce it quite well). Motohiro is also too long and an unfamiliar word, so it's hard to remember. When I tell people it's short for "Motorcycle Hero," they laugh.
At one conference, I tried saying, "My name is hard to remember, so you don't have to. But please remember Keio University. Just call me the Keio Guy." I was called the Keio Guy for the rest of the conference, so it must have been much easier to remember than my actual name.
However, while people can somehow remember Keio when they hear the sound "Kay-oh," when they see it written as "Keio," people with a German background invariably pronounce it "Kai-oh." When I tell them, "It's Kay-oh," they practice it in their mouths with a puzzled look on their faces.
In any case, even with foreigners, you can sometimes manage if you know their title, even if you've forgotten their name. Calling them President, Vice Chancellor, or Vice President will work. A businessman once told me, "If you forget a name, you'll usually be fine just calling them 'my brother' or 'my friend.'" That might be a bit difficult to do in academia, though.
The problem is when I forget the name of a Keio staff member. In this case, I can't just call them "Professor," "Mr.," or "Ms." Despite interacting with them often, there are a few people whose names I just can't recall immediately. I don't know why, but it doesn't come to me in an instant. It's not that I dislike them. If I take a few minutes to think, "What was that person's name again?" it eventually comes to me, but not within a few seconds. There are some very awkward moments.
Even among people I don't interact with often, there are some whose names come to me right away and others whose names don't. What could be the difference? I've heard that humans don't use their brain's full capacity. Yet, I feel exhausted every day. I don't expect people to remember my name, so I sincerely (and secretly) hope they will forgive me if I can't recall theirs right away.