Why I Like Numbers More Than Names
And how Coach is making me rethink my preferences
iStock: credit Xtockimages
Background if you’re new to Alfred: Alfred is a 14-year-old teenage boy whose world is comprised of his mom, his favorite Soho Glob cookies, a Ninja named Naruto, baseball stats, and chess. Alfred has difficulty making friends until his mom decides it's time to change things up and hires Coach. Coach uses Alfred’s passions to help guide him. Alfred has taken Coach’s lessons and is explaining them in his words in a column called “Alfred’s Corner.” The book from which this stems is “Alfred’s Journey to Be Liked” which was released in February 2023.
There’s been a lot for me to learn this year, but maybe nothing was more surprising than Coach telling me that a person’s name was their favorite word.
Me: Really?
Coach: Yes, really.
Me: More than homerun, Soho Globs, or the best phrase of all, “You’re right?”
Coach: Yes, more than all that.
Then and now
So I was pretty sure that Coach was wrong, but I didn’t have numbers to back me up.
If I were to ask my new friends (“new” because they just became my friends due to Coach’s plan, which included starting a chess club and being the narrator in Hannah’s play) about their favorite word, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t say their name. If I suggested their name, they’d likely ask me if this was another example of Coach’s “Ha ha matters” lesson where humor is used to lighten our mood.
But back to numbers… I believe numbers tell a story. Here are three examples (Hannah told me to be concrete when I write):
Baseball: Who has the hottest bat? I look at batting average, RBIs, and home runs. For pitcher stats, I start with strikeouts, walks, and ERA.
Chess stats: How many moves are in the game, and what number were forced? I also look at stats around the grandmaster standings and wins in connection with unusual strategies (ex: underpromoting key pieces).
Probabilities: How likely will my mom remember I like Taco Tuesday? Can I get Mitchell to join me in Hannah’s “get-together” that I don’t want to go to? He values his quiet time too.
Numbers tell us so much because we can track trends. There is no way I can do this with people’s names. At most, I can ask them who they were named after — if they even were. Or I can ask them if they have a nickname or whether they like their name. My mom told me not to ask the last question:
“Alfred, it is unlikely that people are going to legally change their name, so asking if they like it might not be a good question in the event that they don’t. It might bring up some tough emotions.”
I certainly didn’t want tough emotions. Coach hasn’t taught me how to deal with that yet. In baseball terms, I want to get a hit, not a home run. That’s why I dropped the question about whether the person likes their name.
I was wondering what I should write on my hand to remind me that names are important since it wasn’t intuitive. It was time to see Coach again.
How Coach sees it (and how I might)
After I explained why numbers told me so much and why names told me so little, Coach explained the value of names this way:
Coach: Ok, I see the problem.
Me: We have a problem?
Coach: Well, a small one. You’re looking at names in terms of what it means to you. But how about what it means to them?
This question made me think. After the silence, I looked at Coach’s face to help me understand more. Nothing doing. Still stumped. So then, I kind of mumbled,
“What it means to them? But they already know their name?”
For some reason, this made Coach smile. And then, as if to put me out of my confusion, he explained,
“Alfred, we use a person’s name as a point of recognition. You are not using their name as a reminder to them or even as a reminder to you. It’s a way that we mark our own connection to that person. In a world of anonymity and size, we are making our world feel small and personal. We are connecting. That is what a person’s name is about.”
To borrow a phrase from my mom, this was a “wow moment.” Suddenly it didn’t matter that I couldn’t track or trend the thing.
And this became how I started to pay attention to what I now call the soft squishy basket of emotions.
I shared this with Hannah, who predictably asked (she bats a 98% probability here),
“So, what’s your takeaway?”
I smiled and said,
“The soft squishy basket of emotions matters a lot — at least to some people.”
Key Message: Names matter because people matter. We need to learn names because they help build friendships and connection, which I am working on adding to my life.