I'm not an American and would use "my friend", "the friend of a flatmate of a friend", etc instead of names. However, this ends up being a bit cumbersome, it w

I'm not an American and would use "my friend", "the friend of a flatmate of a friend", etc instead of names. However, this ends up being a bit cumbersome, it would probably more efficient to introduce names a first time and just use names after, and let people ask "Who's Emma already?" if they don't remember or if you forgot to introduce the name. This feels off to me however, so I don't do this unless it becomes to cumbersome in a conversations.