"Hi! We haven't met before. It is highly unlikely I will remember your name when we see one another again. It's not because I don't like you, or don't remember you, it's that I'm a programmer and I'm a little bit special-needs onna-spectrum autistic. Do not feel diminished. I might remember your name better if it had a 2 digit numeral after it: Craig23 would be memorable, Philip32 also, but plain old FRED, less so ... unless your wife's name is Wilma.
I have noticed I tend to store names using a cheap-assed hash, using the first and last phonemes of the name. This is an old trick from interpreters in the 1970s, but you don't need to know that.
I will remember the key points of every conversation we'll ever have. If you're really special, or your words were, I'll remember them verbatim, essentially forever (or until the problem you posed has been solved, or the insight you provided has been superseded.)
Here's the problem: I'm a programmer. I've written a million lines of code. I remember most of the names of the important functions and variables (not that I use global variables) in most of the programs I've ever written. I just have to look at the code, and the whole thing cascades back into my memory (as if it's being swapped from secondary store, but you don't need to know that.)
Another problem: I'm a sysadmin for fun. There are in the order of 10,000 commands in a unix system, although I probably only need to remember at most 1000 of them, and probably only regularly use 100 of them.
Another problem: There are hundreds of commands and functions in the programming languages I use, and I know about 20 programming languages, although to be fair I only regularly use about half a dozen of them.
So, if you see me and call out "Hey Colin!" and I say "Oh! Hey!" please don't feel crestfallen because I don't remember your name. I remember you're from Austin originally, and you're interested in turbulent flow in relatively viscous fluids. Your name might be Phil, but it also might be Craig27 for all I know. To me, what you're interested in, and what you're doing is far more important than what your Mum and Dad happened to call you.
Yours Apologetically,
Colin."
I want to get that printed on a card, at least until Google Glass comes out with a face-recognition->name app. Is it too much to read on first meeting?
