I feel so rude forgetting people's names when they know mine

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I work in a pub kitchen, whilst I can remember my kitchen co-workers names. I often struggle to remember the bar workers names (I never go out on the bar), which can be quite embarrassing at times. Especially when, for instance, someone's car is blocking me in and I have to ask who's it is and I get a name I don't know the face to. More often that not I will get someone else to get the person under the pretense of just nipping to the toilet or something similar.

Most of the time however, you can just get away without using their name if they start the conversation or literally just with "hi" and no names involved.

3 years ago a new student joined my class and told us his name and about himself, then we where walking to the library and he was talking to me for about 5 minutes, then he suddenly asks "whats my name" and i couldnt remember ,then i said a name and he said no you dont even know my name, then i asked what it was and he didn't tell me till the end of the day. Then that nite i memorized his name and said it to him the next day but he didnt talk to me much after that. He left the class a few weeks later. Now after 3 years i cant forget his name... i dont think i ever will . its Yousef

There are very few people who's names I know. Very very few.

I often found it impossible to remember names as a young teenager, because I couldn't remember the people exactly. If someone would have turned up who looked very similar to a person I knew I'd most likely mix them up. I even mixed up members of my family.

How I worked through this problem:

I'm way too old to draw cards or anything, thus I did the following all in my head. I tried to find something unique about every person that I needed to know the name off. It's not a good idea to start with 30 people - keeping it to, like, 5 in the beginning is way better. Every person has a characteristic thing about him or her, that can be a word or sentence they keep saying, the way they do their hair or some bag or cloak they carry around. Maybe what they like, pick at lunch, anything can be it really, as long as it's something easy to recognise and something personal. Then I tried to stick the name to the characteristic, that's memorising mostly.

By a list, a picture, writing it down to remember it, whatever works best for someone. At first it's hard, that's why it's better to try it on as few people as possible, but by now - take into consideration that it took me a while, it wasn't a matter of a few weeks or months - I can easily remember people.
Not always their names, I'll have to make an effort still, but I can recognise them and, if I want to, remember their name too. Hard training, I started when I was 15, now I'm 19, but it was worth it.

It has worked for me, maybe this helps others too.