Forgetting people's names

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I forget the names of people I have known for ages. Not close friends but people I have worked with and sat 20 feet from at work for years. I look at them and it's like I have some kind of mind freeze where I know that I know it but can't think what it is. I find it really awkward at times.

Is that a human trait or something particularly in line with ASD?

Are you sure it's the name you're forgetting and not the name that belongs to a certain face? I mean a lot of autistic people, myself included, have prosopagnosia, meaning difficulty to remember faces, no matter how long you have known them.

For example if someone from your work ran in to you in the other side of the town, in a place you've never seen him/her before and didn't expect to either, would you know that that person works with you, sits next to you in fact, yet you can't remember their name? If this is the case then you probably really do have trouble with names. On the other hand if this person walks up to you in that situation yet you have no idea who they are until they say their name, then the problem is most likely that you didn't forget the name, just the face.

I do get those mind blank moments when I forget somebody's name, but usually if I haven't seen them for a while.

I do feel very uncomfortable saying people's names, especially first names. Sometimes I think it's because I might say the wrong name, but it's the same with my husband for example. It's just uncomfortable to say it out loud. A bit like making eye contact, I guess. I don't mind so much when I can use a title, like Miss Jones or Mr Tennant, which is more formal and comfortable.

if i want to remember someone names/face forever, i have to live with the person for at least some weeks or even months. If i know someone today, i will forget about that person, or have a delay of some seconds(mind blank) before i remember it. its a short-memory problem in my case. like that dory from finding nemo has.

I don't have prosopagnosia, nor have issues with the face. Yet a few people suspects I do.
Main reasons why I somehow forget faces are because I don't focus on people's face overall, and being nearsighted.

Add years of being asocial within most of my teenage years, I also end up with the habit of forgetting names. It still sticks to this day.
Granted, being asocial was the best school years I ever had than being involved to any social role at all.

That, and how I remember and distinguish people isn't by name, like how I don't think things in words. So I tend to remember the face first, if not then what moments I witnessed from said person (actions done, words spoken..), then the name.

Then add how I recall words badly. Even worse with names. Then having a bad short term memory for it... With factors that I tend to mishear names as something else.

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This is a huge problem for me. If I see somebody frequently I can remember their face and have their correct name. But for people I might see a couple of times a month, I don't remember their face and so I don't even remember meeting them. I must seem like I don't care or I'm just totally living in my own world, but I have an issue filing away a face in memory due to poor spatial abilities.

I also understand using first names. I avoid using first names for two reasons. First, I'm afraid I'll say the wrong name and be embarrassed. But second, using a first name is like looking somebody in the eye. It sort of is intimate or too forward or something. I can't really explain it. If I really know and trust somebody and I'm friendly with them, I have no problem using their first name. But I think if I use the first name of somebody who I don't know well, it will open up the possibility of a more social conversation which is exactly what I'm afraid of.

Definitely very common (although not universal) among people on the spectrum. I'm absolutely horrible with names. I used to think that I was good with faces but not names, but am now convinced that my difficulty with names is as much a face problem as a name problem.

Have you tried the Cambridge Face Memory Test at the link below?
http://www.bbk.ac.uk/psychology/psychol ... tartup.php

Apparently the average score is 80% and you might be face blind if you score below 65%. I managed 38%.

I'm usually good with names, but I don't always call people by name because I'm afraid of getting it wrong. For me, using a wrong name would be a huge embarrassment.