I have the name problem to an extreme. I have excellent face recall, but I can't remember names--and of course it worsens in social situations. I've pretty much

I have the name problem to an extreme. I have excellent face recall, but I can't remember names--and of course it worsens in social situations. I've pretty much given up on trying to introduce people to one another after repeatedly introducing my best friend as "my best friend"...awkwardly leaving it at that because I'd temporarily forgotten his name. Furthermore, I have a hard time discussing books with friends because I can't recall characters' names--despite having seen them hundreds of times throughout the course of a story. In such conversations, I have to denote characters by their identifying traits or actions. Since I don't seem to suffer from other non-visual recall issues (for example, my working vocabulary seems normal and I can remember past conversations in detail), I find the problem particularly strange. I avoid slighting people by letting them know up front that I'm terrible with names. But I think it helps that mildly-poor name recall is common enough that people can empathize and excuse it. Also, I can quickly recognize and greet people I know--even if I can't acknowledge them by name. I'd imagine that most would find the effects of prosopagnosia more jarring and harder to dismiss without much more explanation than my bad name memory requires.