Remember Someone’s Name by Associating It With a Famous Person
Most of us have been there: you meet someone, you recognize his name and almost immediately forget him. The next time you are introduced to someone, immediately think of the famous person who bears his name.
Names should be easy to remember, but they are not . Forbes writer Christy Hedges suggests associations:
I got a tip that changed my life from a speaker who spoke to my group Vistage many years ago. After very briefly meeting with 15 people in our group, he began to walk around the room and repeat exactly each of our names. His trick? When you’re dating someone, think of a famous person (or someone you know) who shares their name and is somewhat similar to them, for example, Ryan looks like Ryan Gosling (if you’re so lucky). I found that it can be more difficult to create an association, but once you do, it will block.
It might actually help if the person looks like a celebrity, but chances are it’s still working to create an association. Reddit user hsumao suggests thinking about 2-3 celebrities with the same name. That way, if you forget one association, you have a couple of others to benefit from.
Of course, this method may not work for strangers with unusual names, in which case consider introducing the person to others . In fact, even for standard names, you can combine this method with this to really anchor the name in your brain.
Forbes has a few more tricks for remembering names, so be sure to check out their full post at the link below.