Tips for Remembering Peoples Names for the first Time

In any business or social setting, remembering a person’s name becomes paramount to your development and acceptance within a group. It's also a great way to Win Friends & Influence People. It’s both polite and reflective of overall intelligence. Often however, with the sheer excitement and influx of sensory data, it can be a confusing social event. Yet there are many ways you can both excel and remember a person’s name. Just by following these simple and yet common sense approaches, you will increase your social confidence.

Our minds work primarily on a pictorial level. Trying to remember pure data is hard however if you create a picture you will have better success. For example you meet a person named Mr. Adam Fish, he tells you he likes to swim, and he’s also wearing a yellow tie. Now instead of trying to remember his name, see his face and any details you can gather and project the pictorial thought of “Mr Fish likes to swim with yellow Adams”. It may seem surreal but your mind has created a visual image of this person. Now the next time you look at him you can imagine that Mr Fish likes to swim with yellow Adams. His name’s Mr Adam Fish.

In essence you’re creating a mini-mnemonic, in association with a visual image.

Names and words without images are more likely to be forgotten then those with visual and cerebral stimuli. But remember too, that you should always avoid a “pet” word. If you hear a colleague or associate refer to someone in a pet sense, you should ignore this word and never try to emulate it. This pet word has been connected via an affinity you are not a part of. Instead rely on your own visual and mnemonic reference.

The association you need to remember is face, name, features, and an odd story you can associate with the person you are trying to remember. So you meet Mr Felix from Arizona who collects model storks, he also has an extensive nose. So remember him as “A big nose stork from Arizona likes his friend Felix”. 

Only one word’s possibly a surname here, and by associating visual stimuli to the person you will not only recognize and remember his name, but you will have amazing opportunities to re-introduce yourself at a later stage.

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By remembering a person’s personal interests you will please your guest. Many people talk but very few of us talk properly. Even fewer of us listen with full attention. So once you show you listened in the past you will become stronger, in a better position to impress your new associate.

Remembering a person’s name at the first meeting becomes easier. Just relax and rely on your ability to create a visual stimulus with the associated person. Over time you will of course get to know more about their interests, but at important business meetings and social gatherings, you need to recall many names at short notice. It will separate you from the other people who have forgotten and who rely on pure data.