Not Using Peoples Names

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I forget where i read it but a person with AS referred to his wife as Unit Two rather than use her name.

I do this too using 2 words i feel uncomfortable saying my partners real name why?

thanks for sharing. i am exactly the same but I've no idea why either

i was going to start a thread on this myself but you beat me to it!

You are kidding!! I struggle to use my husband's given name both to and about him, but could never understand why. (Well, i still don't understand!) When i manage to do it from sheer will it feels so wrong to me and probably sounds fake. The one exception is that i can sometimes make it a joke to call his full name, as if he's a kid in trouble, but not always. I always feel guilty and terrible about it as if it is some kind of insult that i can't stop myself giving. I finally decided that it's because it's what his mother called him or something. I give him a personal name of my own making. Really, though, i doubt that is the case since i have always found this to be true of everyone; i can almost never bear to refer to someone by their given name, at least directly to them. Even learning to just say "Sir" and "Ma'am" to people when i was young was very hard. I can't fathom why but i always felt like an idiot when i managed to say it. Saying people's names to them usually feels incredibly unnatural and uncomfortable.

There seems to be a pattern to it, though. It seems that the more intimate i am with someone (ooo, it gives me creepy shivers to say that) the harder it is to call them by name. The exception is children. I don't have any problem using their given names to them, even my own (of course, i did name them).

Is there a specific title for this 'condition'?

I recall the study where people who had trouble looking others in the eyes underwent MRI and it was discovered that NT have signals that go to the limbic system when they look into eyes, but for the others the signals went to the amygdala, thereby causing anxiety. It was a totally unconscious event. I set out as a teenager to learn how to look in people's eyes, and a few decades of practice later was able to do it with no anxiety at all.
Perhaps for you the saying of names arouses your amygdala.

You know, now that I think of it I have a really, really hard time using people's names. I'm okay using people's names when I know them really well or am very comfortable around them. But I just feel wrong otherwise.

Yes, I've always had trouble with this myself and I don't know why. It doesn't matter if I'm with family, around friends, or at work, for some reason I just feel uncomfortable calling people by their names. I have no problem using people's names when I'm talking about them in the third person, but calling people by their names when I'm talking straight to them just doesn't feel natural to me.

If I'm in a situation where I have to ask someone a question, I try to get their attention without using their name. Usually I'll just say "hi", or try to make some noise to let them know I'm there. Sometimes if I'm lucky I can find an icebreaker ("Wow, that's a cool new desk toy you've got there", etc) and then go from there.

Me, too!
My wife and kids, fine; I can use their names, but I prefer nicknames. My parents? Mom and Dad. But everyone else? I do everything I can to avoid using people's names. One reason is that I get confused/uncomfortable with when it is or isn't appropriate to use someone's first name.

I'm worst with my own name...

But I'm not that great with other peoples names either. To some extent I can handle it.... but it gets worse the less certain I am about someone's name... or the less I've heard them referred to or addressed to know what they prefer.

I do NOT like people using my actual name though. I tell them to call me whatever they like, but not my actual name. Doesn't usually work out that way though. v_v;

I do fine with most other people's names.

I don't like being called my own though, and I can't explain why except that it feels invasive, like having someone dunk my head in icewater. Pretty much from the moment I could insist on it, I insisted that people call me something different, although exactly what varied a good deal. I went by my middle name for quite awhile too. And it's one reason I loved BBS handles and later Internet handles.

And then being called my full name (first and last) is even worse because in childhood the only time I heard my entire name put together was when kids were teasing me about it, putting the emphasis mostly on the surname, so I grew up thinking it was a fairly hostile set of words when put together.

I try not to tell people these things often though because then they sometimes feel like they have to go out of their way to come up with something else to call me -- one person I know still calls me by my initials after the last conversation where this came up. But on these boards it's okay anyway because mostly we use handles here.

And the oak tree mimics me.

Nope, I was typing the post before yours showed up.

Didn't assume for an instant that it wasn't independantly derived...

... But it was amusing that you posted basically the same content, worded differently, right after I posted mine.

Bat wings and Bird wings, I guess.

Yeah it is kind of funny, I was a little surprised to see yours.

But then it's also oddly common -- there was a discussion years back on an autism list about it, and a huge number of us hated using our names. (That's why there's now someone who insists on calling me A or AB to this day.) So maybe it shouldn't be as surprising as it is.

Edited to add: In fact I'd thought of starting a thread on it so as not to disrupt this one too much, since at least for me it's two totally different things.

I have precisely the same problem. I can retain even the most absurd memories about someone, but when asked to produce a given name, I often draw a blank. It could just be me, but when I think about someone, I think entirely in images and abstracts. The name seems so trivial and disconnected from who they really are, that I cannot produce it without work.

On an odd aside, having many friends who are furries has given me an odd perspective on this! Most furries pick their own "patron" species in a way that's sympathetic to their own personalities. This can be deliberate, but or more often, I think, it is intuitive. I myself am a Rabbit, because I feel a kinship on an intuitive level, but ultimately because I process stimuli as I imagine a rabbit does. (Think "Animals in Translation".) This connection between species and personality is far from an exact science, but it is far more telling than a given name.

It may take me a few moments for me to remember the given name of a close friend I've had for many years - it's just an arbitary symbol that bears no resemblance to the person. Even after hearing a given name, it may still take me a moment to connect it to an actual person. But the connection between the individual and his patron species is always immediate. When someone mentions a friend by patron species: dragon, jackalope, lion, fox, cat, winged rabbit, polar bear, owl, yoshi, chipmunk... the connection is immediate.

I don't expect a non-fur to share this experience, but I do wonder why this would be.

I have this trouble with people I don't know very well but should...if that makes sense.
I know there names but use other names instead.
For instance im in a hotel at the moment, I memorised most of the guests names but instead of using them there are the Nodding Heads, The Know-it Alls, The Affair Couple etc. I know their names but using them would be...im not sure what the word is but it makes my spine shiver. I don't want them using my name either, they don't know it and I won't let them know.
I used to have to wear a name badge at work and if customers called be by my name I would always have mild anxiety and anger type attacks.

I don't know why though. Names are private and important to me.

Somewhat of a borderline therianthrope here.
Not quite the same.... but I'm very much the feral cat.
I mean I was raised by felines practically. Communicate with them WAY better than with humans. Act like them often.

I have another avatar I use quite often that depicts an Ocelot. I'm still not sure why I picked that of all felines.... but it seems so elusive, fairly diminutive as wild feline species go... It just suited me, I felt.... even if my general life attitude is more like that of a domestic-gone-feral.