The name escapes me

On cognitive load, character names, and my old-lady brain

The other night a few fellow writers and I were walking down the street looking for a bar. The one we’d intended to drink at was closed for holiday vacation. “We should go to that one place instead,” I offered. “You know, the one a couple of blocks up. Next to that other place.”

This is life at 52. Perimenopause has turned my brain into a sieve, and proper nouns fall through first. I call my children and family members by interchangeable names. I describe movies as “the one with that guy from the thing.” To be fair, my working memory for names has never been awesome—undiagnosed ADHD will do that—but these days it’s practically nonexistent. In conversation I start talking, driving confidently toward the information I need.

But when it comes time to pull the name of something, everything goes blank.

I’ve been thinking lately about the cognitive load that names require, and how this translates to writing. “Cognitive load” refers to how our brains process and retain information, and the limitations of our working memory. There’s only so much room.

In my career as a user experience content designer, I’ve led a lot of naming projects—helping companies figure out the perfect words to describe a software product, program, or feature. What I’ve learned is that every time we give something a name, it adds to the mental list of things people need to keep track of.

How fictional names deduct from the cognitive budget

Your readers have a limited mental budget. Every character name, every invented term, and every titled object withdraws from that account. Overdraw it, and they’re flipping back pages trying to remember who’s who—or worse, setting the book down entirely.

I love naming things in my writing, and I keep extensive spreadsheets to track all my characters and objects. But it’s a lot to ask of readers to keep track of all those names. If I, the writer, have to keep checking my reference sheet to remember who “Charles Bascott” is, my readers absolutely won’t remember him.

If you’ve ever read Tolstoy or Dostoevsky and had to constantly refer to the character list in the front of the book—because not only does everyone’s name look alike to unfamiliar American readers, but every character has three nicknames—then you understand how disruptive it is to get lost in a sea of names. Those authors also wrote for readers with longer attention spans and fewer competing demands. We’re not operating in that environment anymore.

Give your readers a brain break

Watch your consonants. Names that start with the same letter or share similar sounds blur together on the page. Clara and Ciara are distinct when spoken aloud, but visually they’re almost identical. Your brain has to work harder to differentiate them, and that work pulls attention away from the story.

Don’t name characters who don’t matter. If the barista appears once to hand over a latte, she doesn’t need to be Melissa. “The barista” works fine. Save proper nouns for people who’ll recur.

Pick a lane with names and stick with it. If you introduce Detective Sarah Chen, then call her “Chen” in one scene, “Sarah” in another, and “the detective” in a third—that’s four mental slots for one character. Readers shouldn’t have to do that math.

Invented terms are names too. Every made-up word—the Tesseract, the Upside Down, the Sorting Hat—draws from the same budget as character names. Fantasy and sci-fi writers need to be especially ruthless. Not every object needs its own capitalized Thing.

Physical descriptors can pinch-hit. “The woman in the red coat” can carry a minor character through an entire scene without adding another proper noun to track.

The goal isn’t to strip your fiction of texture or specificity. It’s to spend your reader’s attention where it matters most—on the characters and moments that drive your story—and let them enjoy the ride.