A remembered contribution gives someone a place in the story afterward.

Being named is how people stay part of something. Contributions that go unrecorded do not just go unrewarded; they slowly stop having happened, and the person who made them ends up outside a story they were inside. Memory is not neutral about this. It keeps whoever was mentioned at the time and quietly loses the rest.

When you tell the history of a project, a family effort, or a good year, put the specific names in. It costs nothing and it decides who gets to feel they belong to the thing afterwards.