I

FORGETTING OF PROPER NAMES

DURING the year 1898 I published a short essay On the
Psychic Mechanism of Forgetfulness.¹ I shall now repeat
its contents and take it as a starting-point for further
discussion. I have there undertaken a psychologic
analysis of a common case of temporary forgetfulness of
proper names, and from a pregnant example of my own
observation I have reached the conclusion that this
frequent and practically unimportant occurrence of a
failure of a psychic function–of memory–admits an
explanation which goes beyond the customary utilization
of this phenomenon.

If an average psychologist should be asked to explain
how it happens that we often fail to recall a name which
we are sure we know, he would probably content himself
with the answer that proper names are more apt to be
forgotten than any other content of memory. He might
give plausible reasons for this “forgetting preference”
for proper names, but he would not assume any deep
determinant for the process.

I was led to examine exhaustively the phenomenon of
temporary forgetfulness through the observation of
certain peculiarities, which, although not general, can,
nevertheless, be seen clearly in some cases. In these there
is not only forgetfulness, but also false recollection: he who

¹Monatschrift f. Psychiatrie.

2

strives for the escaped name brings to consciousness
others—substitutive names—which, although imme-
diately recognized as false, nevertheless obtrude them-
selves with great tenacity. The process which should
lead to the reproduction of the lost name is, as it were,
displaced, and thus brings one to an incorrect substitute.

Now it is my assumption that the displacement is not
left to psychic arbitrariness, but that it follows lawful and
rational paths. In other words, I assume that the substi-
tutive name (or names) stands in direct relation to the
lost name, and I hope, if I succeed in demonstrating this
connection, to throw light on the origin of the forgetting
of names.

In the example which I selected for analysis in 1898
I vainly strove to recall the name of the master who made
the imposing frescoes of the “Last Judgment” in the
dome of Orvieto. Instead of the lost name—Signorelli—
two other names of artists—Botticelli and Boltraffio—
obtruded themselves, names which my judgment imme-
diately and definitely rejected as being incorrect. When
the correct name was imparted to me by an outsider I
recognized it at once without any hesitation. The examin-
ation of the influence and association paths which caused
the displacement from Signorelli to Botticelli and Boltraffio
led to the following results:—

(a) The reason for the escape of the name Signorelli is
neither to be sought in the strangeness in itself of this
name nor in the psychologic character of the connection
in which it was inserted. The forgotten name was just as
familiar to me as one of the substitutive names—Botticelli
—and somewhat more familiar than the other substitute—
Boltraffio—of the possessor of which I could hardly say
more than that he belonged to the Milanese School. The

3

connection, too, in which the forgetting of the name took
place appeared to me harmless, and led to no further
explanation. I journeyed by carriage with a stranger from
Ragusa, Dalmatia, to a station in Herzegovina. Our
conversation drifted to travelling in Italy, and I asked my
companion whether he had been in Orvieto and had seen
there the famous frescoes of–

(b) The forgetting of the name could not be explained
until after I had recalled the theme discussed immediately
before this conversation. This forgetting then made
. itself known as a disturbance of the newly emerging theme
caused by the theme preceding it. In brief, before I asked
my travelling companion if he had been in Orvieto we had
been discussing the customs of the Turks living in Bosnia
and Herzegovina. I had related what I heard from a
colleague who was practising medicine among them,
namely, that they show full confidence in the physician
and complete submission to fate. When one is compelled
to inform them that there is no help for the patient, they
answer: “Sir (Herr), what can I say? I know that if he
could be saved you would save him.” In these sentences
alone we can find the words and names: Bosnia, Herze-
govina, and Herr (sir), which may be inserted in an
association series between Signorelli, Botticelli, and
Boltraffio.

(c) I assume that the stream of thoughts concerning
the customs of the Turks in Bosnia, etc., was able to
disturb the next thought, because I withdrew my attention
from it before it came to an end. For I recalled that I
wished to relate a second anecdote which was next to the
first in my memory. These Turks value the sexual pleas-
ure above all else, and at sexual disturbances merge into
an utter despair which strangely contrasts with their

4

resignation at the peril of losing their lives. One of my
colleague’s patients once told him: “For you know, sir
(Herr), if that ceases, life no longer has any charm.”
I refrained from imparting this characteristic feature
because I did not wish to touch upon such a delicate
theme in conversation with a stranger. But I went still
further; I also deflected my attention from the continuation
of the thought which might have associated itself in me
with the theme “Death and Sexuality.” I was at that time
under the after-
effects of a message which I had received
a few weeks before, during a brief sojourn in Trafoi. A
patient on whom I had spent much effort had ended his
life on account of an incurable sexual disturbance. I
know positively that this sad event, and everything
connected with it, did not come to my conscious recollec-
tion on that trip in Herzegovina. However, the agreement
between Trafoi and Boltraffio forces me to assume that
this reminiscence was at that time brought to activity
despite all the intentional deviation of my attention.
(d) I can no longer conceive the forgetting of the name
Signorelli as an accidental occurrence. I must recognize
in this process the influence of a motive. There were
motives which actuated the interruption in the communi-
cation of my thoughts (concerning the customs of the
Turks, etc.), and which later influenced me to exclude
from my consciousness the thought connected with them,
and which might have led to the message concerning the
incident in Trafoi—that is, I wanted to forget something,
I repressed something. To be sure, I wished to forget
something other than the name of the master of Orvieto;
but this other thought brought about an associative
connection between itself and this name, so that my act
of volition missed the aim, and I forgot the one against my

5

will, while I intentionally wished to forget the other. The
disinclination to recall directed itself against the one
content; the inability to remember appeared in another.
The case would have been obviously simpler if this dis-
inclination and the inability to remember had concerned
the same content. The substitutive names no longer
seem so thoroughly justified as they were before this
explanation. They remind me (after the form of a com-
promise) as much of what I wished to forget as of what I
wished to remember, and show me that my object to
forget something was neither a perfect success nor a
failure.

(e) The nature of the association formed between the
lost name and the repressed theme (death and sexuality,
etc.), containing the names of Bosnia, Herzegovina, and
Trafoi, is also very strange. In the scheme inserted here,
which originally appeared in 1898, an attempt is made
to graphically represent these associations.

The name Signorelli was thus divided into two parts.
One pair of syllables (elli) returned unchanged in one of
the substitutions, while the other had gained, through the
translation of signor (sir, Herr), many and diverse relations
to the name contained in the repressed theme, but was
lost through it in the reproduction. Its substitution was
formed in a way to suggest that a displacement took place
along the same associations—"Herzegovina and Bosnia"
—regardless of the sense and acoustic demarcation. The
names were therefore treated in this process like the
written pictures of a sentence which is to be transformed
into a picture-puzzle (rebus). No information was given
to consciousness concerning the whole process, which,
instead of the name Signorelli, was thus changed to the
substitutive names. At first sight no relation is apparent

Signor elli

(Bo) ticelli

{Bo} l traffio

Her zegovina and

(Bo) snia

Herr Sir, What can I say, etc.

Death and Sexuality

Repressed thoughts

{Trafoi}

7

between the theme that contained the name Signorelli
and the repressed one which immediately preceded it.
Perhaps it is not superfluous to remark that the given
explanation does not contradict the conditions of memory
reproduction and forgetting assumed by other psycholo-
gists, which they seek in certain relations and dispositions.
Only in certain cases have we added another motive to the
factors long recognized as causative in forgetting names,
and have thus laid bare the mechanism of faulty memory.
The assumed dispositions are indispensable also in our
case, in order to make it possible for the repressed element
to associatively gain control over the desired name and
take it along into the repression. Perhaps this would not
have occurred in another name having more favourable
conditions of reproduction. For it is quite probable that
a suppressed element continually strives to assert itself in
some other way, but attains this success only where it
meets with suitable conditions. At other times the sup-
pression succeeds without disturbance of function, or, as
we may justly say, without symptoms.
– When we recapitulate the conditions for forgetting a
name with faulty recollection we find: (1) a certain dis-
position to forget the same; (2) a process of suppression
which has taken place shortly before; and (3) the possi-
bility of establishing an outer association between the
concerned name and the element previously suppressed.
The last condition will probably not have to be much
overrated, for the slightest claim on the association is apt
in most cases to bring it about. But it is a different and
farther-reaching question whether such outer association
can really furnish the proper condition to enable the
suppressed element to disturb the reproduction of the
desired name, or whether after all a more intimate con-

8

nection between the two themes is not necessarily
required. On superficial consideration one may be
willing to reject the latter requirement and consider the
temporal meeting in perfectly dissimilar contents as
sufficient. But on more thorough examination one finds
more and more frequently that the two elements (the
repressed and the new one) connected by an outer asso-
ciation, possess besides a connection in content, and this
can also be demonstrated in the example Signorelli.

The value of the understanding gained through the
analysis of the example Signorelli naturally depends on
whether we must explain this case as a typical or as an
isolated process. I must now maintain that the forgetting
of a name associated with faulty recollection uncommonly
often follows the same process as was demonstrated in the
case of Signorelli. Almost every time that I observed this
phenomenon in myself I was able to explain it in the
manner indicated above as being motivated by repression.

I must mention still another view-point in favour of
the typical nature of our analysis. I believe that one is
not justified in separating the cases of name-forgetting
with faulty recollection from those in which incorrect
substitutive names have not obtruded themselves. These
substitutive names occur spontaneously in a number of
cases; in other cases, where they do not come sponta-
neously, they can be brought to the surface by concentra-
tion of attention, and they then show the same relation to
the repressed element and the lost name as those that
come spontaneously. Two factors seem to play a part
in bringing to consciousness the substitutive names: first,
the effort of attention, and second, an inner determinant
which adheres to the psychic material. I could find the
latter in the greater or lesser facility which forms the

9

required outer associations between the two elements. A
great many of the cases of name-
forgetting without faulty recollection therefore belong to the cases with substitutive
name formation, the mechanism of which corresponds to
the one in the example Signorelli. But I surely shall not
venture to assert that all cases of name-
forgetting belong to the same group. There is no doubt that there are cases
of name-
forgetting that proceed in a much simpler way.
We shall represent this state of affairs carefully enough
if we assert that besides the simple forgetting of proper
names there is another forgetting which is motivated by
repression.