As you point out, in some cases it's better to just accept that you're not good with names if the effort of trying to deal with it is affecting your other interaction with people. A former neighbour of mine was so bad at names and faces that she wouldn't recognise you in the street and walk right past you, making it seem like she was blanking you. Once I experienced that I realised that simply not being able to remember someone's name wasn't really such a killer, a lot of the time you can cover it up. Also, while you may feel bad about it, it's possible the other person has barely even noticed it, or if they have will forget about it 30 seconds later.