referring to unknown/absent friends by their name

[gusl]

Here's a linguistic/pragmatic phenomenon: how often one refers to unknown & absent friends by their name. e.g. "One time, my friend Julia ... " vs "One time, my friend from school ...".

Is this related to formality? East Coast vs West Coast?

I usually only refer to someone's name when I expect that it will be recognized. If necessary, I'll introduce them first, before name-dropping. Maybe it's a habit from programming.

Comments

[gfish.livejournal.com]

I would usually not reference them by name, in that context. It just seems like extraneous information.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

names become necessary if you're telling an involved story with multiple characters.

[altamira16.livejournal.com]

This is what I was about to say.

[gfish.livejournal.com]

Sure, if it's a complicated story then labels could be needed. But my default case is to leave them off, cause why would people care what my friend in grade school's name was?

[visgoth.livejournal.com]

I usually name names. I don't know what my cultural motivators are for doing so. I lived in Wisconsin and New Mexico during my formative years.

I'll typically say something like, "Rob, my best friend when I was a teenager living in Germany, was walking along..."

[kvschwartz.livejournal.com]

I usually name names, unless I'm trying to protect a confidence, or the name would just add to the confusion. I've lived all over the U.S. and also in Montreal. Naming names makes it easier in case other characters enter the story later.

[qatar.livejournal.com]

I often give a name or unique identifier (e.g. "my best friend from high school"). I think this is because I have a few friends that I tell multiple stories about, so even if my friends haven't met, e.g., Andrew, they've heard enough Andrew stories that they know who he is.

[rdore.livejournal.com]

so even if my friends haven't met, e.g., Andrew, they've heard enough Andrew stories that they know who he is.

Your choice of example made me smile.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

so I guess you know qatar, via Andrew and G?

[rdore.livejournal.com]

Via Andrew. She's a common character in his Qatar stories, and we've met in person at least once.

[qatar.livejournal.com]

Well, c'mon, everyone should get to know Andrew, even if it's only vicariously through crazy Qatar stories.

It makes ME smile that I'm a character in his stories, too.

[groen.livejournal.com]

I always used to think of this as primarily a male/female distinction: I grew used to hearing guys open their remarks with something along the lines of "So this guy I know, Matt..." or "My buddy Jason and I were...", while girls seemed to use the phrase "my friend" almost exclusively, often without even a clarifying appositive.

This was much more true in high school, it seems; for the last n years I've noticed no particular pattern in usage -- but then I haven't really been listening for one.

[chrisamaphone]

i seem to know several girls (mostly em and jess, though) who will just use the person's name without any explanation, and it's impossible to tell whether they expect you to know who they're talking about or not. >.<

[bhudson.livejournal.com]

When I was younger, I'd just name-drop. No relationship information, just a name. That got beaten out of me.

Now I tend to use "my old roommate" or "my ex-girlfriend X" or whatever.

[chrisamaphone]

perhaps it has more to do with whether you expect to mention the person again.
if you're telling a story about the person, it makes sense to say "my friend so-and-so from kalamazoo" so that you can just say so-and-so for future occurrences. or even if you're just mentioning them in passing, but you expect that you might tell your audience about this person again sometime, it helps to give them a name so that they can link up your stories and have a chance of forming a coherent idea of your friend.

[marymcglo.livejournal.com]

This, where probability of future mentioning depends both on the audience and the subject-- if either is a close friend I'm more likely to name, but if either is someone I am not / was never close to I probably won't bother.

[bhudson.livejournal.com]

You've got a gal in Kalamazoo?