Do you ever have trouble remembering names? Here's a simple trick. To make it easier to remember, we'll introduce it with a little joke:
A grasshopper walks into a bar.
The bartender says, "This is a first. Did you know we serve a drink that's named after you?"
"Wait," says the grasshopper. "You mean you have a drink called Steve?"
I laughed when I first heard this one. But, I also told it to my daughter's friend's dad, after I met him for third time and I still couldn't remember his name. ("Steve," he reminded me.)
Now, because I associate his name with the grasshopper joke, I can almost guarantee I'll never forget it again.
The trick to recalling names (and the reason it's so hard sometimes) is grounded in a simple neuroscientific fact: When we meet new people, we usually store their names in the part of our brains devoted to short-term memory.
Most of the time, that's the right place for it. We're inundated with information constantly, so our brains have evolved to bury less important memories in favor of information that matters more, and can be accessed more quickly.
As Tomás Ryan of the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience in Dublin and Paul Frankland of the department of psychology at the University of Toronto wrote last year:
"Rather than being a bug, forgetting may be a functional feature of the brain, allowing it to interact dynamically with the environment. Forgetting some memories can be beneficial."
But, when it comes to names, we wind up with a problem or two:
- First, we usually don't know when we meet someone if they, or their names, will be important to us later.
- Second, even if someone does promise to be important, we're still conditioned to clump the memory of his or her name in with all the other short-term data.
So, the trick is to learn to associate names with other memories that we're less likely to bury.
The grasshopper joke is one example. I couldn't forget my daughter's friend's dad's name now if I tried, because it's associated with the joke (famous last words, but I feel confident: Steve).
There are a lot of other techniques you can use to associate someone's name with another memory, too and make them more accessible. Examples might include:
Visual memories
Suppose you meet a man named John while waiting in line for the restroom. You're literally standing there, looking at the door to a bathroom. This example is almost too easy, but you get the point.
(For non-American or younger readers, sometimes "john" is slang for "bathroom.")
Word association
I find it works to think of an analogous term that someone's name sounds like.
For example, if I met a woman named "Emily Smith," her name might remind me of the "liberty ships" the US built during World War II. (My references can be obscure, but that's OK, since I'm creating them for my benefit, anyway.)
Same thing with a woman I met recently from Turkey named Emine; I guess she's been through this before, because she suggested that I think of the fact that her name is pronounced like "M&A," short for "mergers and acquisitions."
Write it down
I do this sometimes. In fact, there's a holiday party I go to almost every year and I've learned the hard way to jot down notes regarding who I met and what we talked about.
Otherwise, there's a good chance that 12 months later, I'll be back at the same party, meeting some of the same people and trying not to simply repeat the same introductions and stories.
Here, of course, you're embedding the memory, but also creating a record you can refer to, later.
Draw it
A study last year in the journal, Aging, Neuropsychology and Cognition, found that sketching an event improved recall, compared to simply writing it down.
I admit, I've never tried this one and I'm not the best artist, but even a simple line drawing with the person's name attached might help.
Popular association
If you meet someone with a common enough name, you immediately try to think of other people with the same name.
So, if I were to meet someone named "Henry," I might immediately try to think of some of the other Henrys I've known, like my nephew Henry and my friend's son Henry and Henry Ford and retired soccer legend Thierry Henry, etc.
Character association
Basically, you try to recall a fictional or famous person or a combination, whose names or images work like a puzzle to help you remember someone's name.
Example: Suppose you met the actor Dylan Walsh but didn't know his work. You might recall the old TV show Beverly Hills 90210, in which one of the lead characters' last names was Walsh, and another's first name was Dylan.
Many other techniques
Some of these techniques become more effective the more you use them, which might be because you become more adept at remembering to make the effort to make the connections. And, some of them probably work better for some people than others.
Still, it also adds a bit of fun to what can sometimes otherwise be a stressful experience. As neuroscientist Dean Burnett wrote:
"I hope this information means that you'll understand that if we ever meet for a second time and I don't remember your name, I'm not being rude. Actually, in terms of social etiquette, I probably am being rude. But now at least you know why."
So, let's finish with a test: What's my daughter's friend's dad's name? The one I couldn't recall and so I told him the grasshopper joke?
(Hint: "Wait. You mean you have a drink named?")
Let me know if it worked.
Inc
