My name is, who? On being misnamed by a relative or a romantic partner

The present survey investigated how people felt (i.e., irritated, sad or amused) when a relative or a romantic partner called them by someone else’s first name. It also explored links between these reactions, self-esteem, the own name’s symbolic value and one’s own propensity to misnaming others. Participants reported more misnaming incidents committed by a relative than by a partner. Moreover, they were significantly more irritated and tended to be sadder when a partner misnamed them than when a relative did so. Conversely, they tended to be more amused when the error was committed by a relative than it was committed by a partner. Globally, naming incidents did not trigger very strong negative feelings but participants reported correcting their interlocutor in a majority of incidents. Correlation analyses could only be performed on misnaming incidents committed by a relative, as incidents with partners were too infrequent. The intensity of feelings associated with these incidents were not predicted by self-esteem or the own name’s symbolic value. However, resulting irritation was less intense and amusement stronger in participants who reported being themselves more prone to misnaming others. The link between people’s metacognitive beliefs about their own naming abilities and the intensity of their feelings when they are misnamed is discussed. Finally, participants considered that the own name was a weaker symbol of personal identity than the own face. The advantage for the own face was nevertheless numerically small.