by Pamela Sosnowski

Created on: December 11, 2010

It’s an embarrassing scenario that has happened to all of us one time or another: we’re introduced to a new acquaintance, and within five minutes their name has escaped us. It can be especially daunting to remember names if you’re attending a social or business function where you meet several people. Addressing someone by their name makes them feel important and shows that you cared enough to remember it. Fortunately, there are many creative and effective tricks that can help you remember a person’s name:

Be in the moment and focus on that one person
Take the time to give each new contact you meet the attention that they deserve and pay attention to their name. Turn off anything that could tempt your mind to become distracted when you’re meeting people, such as a mobile device.

Immediately repeat the person’s name back to them
State the person’s name and tell them it’s nice to meet them. For example, “Cynthia. It’s nice to meet you, Cynthia. I’m (your name.)” Saying their name right away helps to reinforce it in memory, and match it with their physical appearance.

Use it in conversation
At some point during your conversation, use the person’s name while asking a question or making a statement. It’s recommended that you don’t do this more than once or twice, however, or you run the risk of making yourself look extremely socially awkward and making the other person uncomfortable.  

Associate the person’s name with a celebrity’s name
One of the easiest ways to remember someone’s name is to immediately associate it with a famous person’s name, even if they have a common name such as John (match it with John F. Kennedy, or for added quirkiness, John C. Reilly.) Thinking of pop culture characters (such as Don Draper for Don) works wonders, too.

Make it rhyme
Remember the 60s tune “The Name Game”? The lyrics went through a series of names and rhymed them to the same nonsense words (“Anna, Anna, bo-banna…”) You can try something similar (in your head, of course) to help you remember them later (such as “Rick, Rick pick up sticks.”) After all, no one will know you’re doing this mental exercise but you.

Jot their name down, if possible
It may not always be convenient to write down a person’s name discretely. However, if you’re in a business environment and handed a card, you can always take a moment after the person parts with you to write down a physical characteristic or something particular they told you about themselves or their job to help you deposit their name in memory.

Remember the FACE method
Benjamin Levy, who wrote a book called “Remember Every Name Every Time”, recommends what he calls the FACE trick: “focus, ask, comment and employ.” For example, focus means to concentrate on the person’s face and embed it to memory. Ask means to find out which version of their name the person prefers (“do you prefer Pat or Patrick?”) Comment means to say something casual about the name to help you remember it (“I know a lot of Pats.”) Employ means using their name in a sentence (“it was nice to meet you, Pat.”)

Practicing even a couple of these tips on a regular basis should help anyone improve their name retaining abilities. But if all else fails, don’t be too embarrassed to ask someone to remind you of their name; after all, it’s much better then calling them by the wrong one - or worse, “hey you.”

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