Hannah had a whopping 30 men vying for her heart when The Bachelorette premiered. After a whirlwind night of meeting all of them and chatting more inside the mansion, she had to conduct her first rose ceremony and choose 22 men to advance to the next week. But after such a short time knowing them, how does the Bachelorette remember the contestants' names when the rest of us can barely keep up? The short answer? She doesn't.
"I did not remember really anyone's name," JoJo Fletcher admitted when answering fan questions on her YouTube channel. Rachel Lindsay also confessed to being bad with names during an interview on The Ellen Show. "I'll be honest, I am not good with names at all, but I'm trying to make an effort," the then-Bachelorette said.
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It seems that the Bachelorettes get by with a little help from their producer friends, especially on night one. Former Bachelorette Ali Fedotowsky said in a 2013 blog for E! Online that producers on her season had flash cards of the men's faces to remind her who they were. "Throughout the night a producer is never far from your side and constantly reminds you about everyone's name ... It is hard to remember everyone, even with the flash cards. It's all so overwhelming," she said.
JoJo added on YouTube that her rose ceremony was broken into chunks so she only had to remember three names at a time. "I go out there, I say the three names, and then we break," she explained. "Then I go back into a different room with producers who have a photo off the lineup." JoJo would then look at the lineup so as to know where the next three men she wanted to choose were and filming would resume. JoJo's fiancé Jordan Rodgers added in the video that these constant breaks were "terrible" for the contestants because they had to stand there for "literally three hours." (No wonder the first rose ceremony ends when it's light out the next morning.)
To make matters worse for Hannah, the number of contestants has been steadily increasing since the show's beginning. For the first few seasons, there were only 25 contestants. That number has gone up over the years, and Hannah had 30 to start her season. So it's hard to fault a Bachelorette for forgetting a name or two, like when Becca Kufrin forgot Jason's name. She was introducing the men on her spa group date to her friends and she totally blanked on poor Jason. It didn't turn out so bad for him, though. He eventually made it into her top three, so being forgotten at first isn't necessarily the end of a contestant's journey.
So far Hannah seems to be doing great at the name thing. She even remembered the contestants she'd previously met on After The Final Rose. But, if she slips up or totally blanks in the future, there's likely a producer close by who can help out.