So, our next door neighbor knocked on our door one evening not long ago. We don’t know him, or them, very well at all, and in fact don’t usually speak. We maybe wave once in a while, but more often than not don’t even do that.
He wanted us to sign a permission form that the city we live in requires if you do any substantial remodeling of your home. Well, it’s not exactly a permission form, but a notification form — to let your neighbors know that work will be done, and, possibly, noise will be made. We had to get our neighbors to sign the same form when we had our roof replaced several years ago.
Anyway, my wife signed my name on the form. Now, the neighbor has gotten all friendly, which is fine, except I don’t know his name. Every time I go out front when he’s out, he shouts, “Hi Tim!” or “How ya doing, Tim?” and I just go, er, “Hey, how are you?” or, just now, “Good evening,” trying to sound cheery and nonchalant and, like, of course I know your name. I’ve even made several attempts to avoid him lately. Last week, pulling up to my house after work I saw that he, too, had just gotten home and was gathering up his mail. I turned right, drove around the block, and came back after he was gone.
This happens fairly often at concerts, too. I’m not bad with names, generally, but more folks know my name at concerts than I do theirs, just because of the position I’m in. Even if at one point I have known the person’s name, it may have been six months or years since I last saw him or her and, sorry, the name is just no longer in my memory bank. I feel stupid, and try not to show that I do.
I attempted to find the neighbor’s name online, by looking up his address. No luck. I’ve toyed with the idea of peeking at his mail, but haven’t done it yet. I think I’ll ask the guy across the street, whose name I know, to see if he knows my neighbor’s name. But I bet he won’t.
classical life 
How funny! What can you do? Yeah, I think I’d ask other neighbors (that you know names of) if they know his name, or even the mailman himself, if he’s one of those “good” mailmen or P.C. letter carriers.
I have a couple of neighbors that I too, don’t know names of (but not next door neighbors), they’re several houses away. Sorry, I just had to tell you that…..
One lady neighbor who used to walk by with her dog a lot, calls me Eric. I don’t know why, nor do I really care. After five years, I’m not going to correct her now.
Marnie, Mark, Mary, Steve, Nadine, Mike, Scott, Shiela, Ginny, Tracy, Chris, Angela, Cathy, Jeffrey, Diego, Sharon, Maryanne, Ann, Armando, And Kitty. My neighbors names in the 15 houses around me. Do you want their last names? Haha….
I’ve experienced a similar dilemma, although in most cases, I lacked only a last name.
Here’s something you might try: Go on-line to whitepages.com/reverse_address. Type in the full street address and hit “enter”. That should provide you with not only your neighbor’s name, but also the names and address of several surrounding neighbors — the ones you do know, the ones you don’t, and (obviously) your own.
I tried this with various addresses on my own street and successfully obtained the names of several neighbors. I managed to achieve the same results in my parents’ neighborhood.
The only potential for inaccurate information I can foresee is in the extremely unlikely event that the deed to your neighbor’s property is registered to someone other than himself (perhaps his brother, for example). Otherwise the mystery surrounding what’s-his-name should be solved shortly.
So give it a try, Tim, and keep your fingers crossed that he hasn’t read this blog.
Tim: Just suck it up and tell him you have a case of early alzheimers and appologize to him that you forgot his name. Then dont forget it a second time….been there done that.
A reader writes:
“Sounds like an episode of ‘Ozzie and Harriet’ that practically writes itself.
In the next scene, Ozzie has a talk with Harriet about how to resolve his name dilemma, but no solution presents itself.
In the scene after that, Ozzie tries to sneak a peek inside his neighbor’s mailbox but finds only junk matter addressed to ‘occupant.’
Meanwhile, the more he tries to avoid the guy, the more he turns up.
Everywhere he goes, it seems. The market, the gas station, his driveway, etc. There’s no escaping the guy. He’s ubiquitous, and Ozzie feels more and more awkward.
Worse, unbeknownst to him, his mailbox snooping was spotted by the neighborhood busybody, who is freaked out by identity theft stories in the media (a modern twist here). That provides the basis of a subplot involving a Jack Friday type postal inspector (think the overzealous library guy Mr. Bookman on Seinfeld) who is determined to catch anyone messing with mailboxes (he’s retired so has no real authority).
Fortunately, the neighbor can’t provide a positive ID (her pupils were dilated thanks to an eye exam earlier that day) but neighborhood paranoia sets in as talk of mailbox snooping spreads and soon everybody is avoiding everybody. Is there any way out of this situation?
All is resolved when Harriet invites Mrs. Neighbor guy to spend an afternoon with her at her bridge club and of course they talk about their husbands by name. In the end, everyone has a good laugh over some tutti-frutti ice cream at the local malt shop and note how little things can lead to big misundertandings, but not before Bookman lectures them on the sanctity of the US Mail. We then cut to the closing credits with the ‘jazzy’ version of the O&H theme.
The End
Stage Five Productions, Hollywood.”