At the beginning of 2010 I made it my mission to remember the names of everyone I was introduced to. I haven’t quite managed everyone, but I’ve gotten pretty close.
My technique: when someone tells me their name, I think of something that rhymes with it, and imagine the person in conjunction with the rhyme. I have a general policy of picking the first thing that comes to mind, since that presumably suggests my brain already has some sort of reliable connection between them.
For example, when meeting Sam for the first time, I will think of the first rhyme for ‘Sam’ that comes to mind, which in the case of a recent Sam was ‘ham’. I imagine Sam holding some ham, with a big grin on her face (she has quite a striking grin anyway, so this detail just sort of cements it in place). When I next meet Sam, I will have a striking image of her holding some ham with a big grin on her face, which I can then follow back to her name.
Over the past year or so I’ve built up quite a menagerie of associations. All people called Sue are now in a large group of Blue Sues in my head. Anyone called Vicky is covered in something sticky. Anyone called Kate has an expression of hate.
Sometimes I have to reach for tenuous rhymes. ‘David’ was a bit of a tricky one, but I eventually settled on ‘shavéd’, and imagine Davids to have a partially-shaved scalp. If anything, the more tenuous rhymes are more memorable, because I also have the memory of the difficult rhyme to hang the name off.
This does occasionally create some odd effects. Last September, for example, I know I met two people called Amanda, but can only remember one of them. The act of remembering their name has persisted in memory, but actually meeting them hasn’t.
The most important aspect isn’t the actual technique (as there are plenty of other name-remembering techniques out there which presumably work fairly well), but getting into the habit of using it. It doesn’t do any good just knowing it; you have to consciously choose to apply it whenever you’re told a name you want to remember, and that’s a much harder habit to get into than you’d think.
It’s also a good technique for remembering things in general. I remembered the term ‘homonymous hemianopia’ recently by imagining Hermione from Harry Potter smoking opium and losing half of her field of vision.
I don’t understand the final example though. Is the memory device just to help you remember some of the letters in the name and the symptom or is there some connection my brain doesn’t make that yours does? HoMoNymous—HerMioNe, HemiAn—HArry, OPIa—OPIum?
The word “homonymous” takes care of itself in my case, since it’s a word I’m familiar with already. The “hermianopia” bit is a not-quite-portmanteau of “hermione” and “opium”.
At the beginning of 2010 I made it my mission to remember the names of everyone I was introduced to. I haven’t quite managed everyone, but I’ve gotten pretty close.
My technique: when someone tells me their name, I think of something that rhymes with it, and imagine the person in conjunction with the rhyme. I have a general policy of picking the first thing that comes to mind, since that presumably suggests my brain already has some sort of reliable connection between them.
For example, when meeting Sam for the first time, I will think of the first rhyme for ‘Sam’ that comes to mind, which in the case of a recent Sam was ‘ham’. I imagine Sam holding some ham, with a big grin on her face (she has quite a striking grin anyway, so this detail just sort of cements it in place). When I next meet Sam, I will have a striking image of her holding some ham with a big grin on her face, which I can then follow back to her name.
Over the past year or so I’ve built up quite a menagerie of associations. All people called Sue are now in a large group of Blue Sues in my head. Anyone called Vicky is covered in something sticky. Anyone called Kate has an expression of hate.
Sometimes I have to reach for tenuous rhymes. ‘David’ was a bit of a tricky one, but I eventually settled on ‘shavéd’, and imagine Davids to have a partially-shaved scalp. If anything, the more tenuous rhymes are more memorable, because I also have the memory of the difficult rhyme to hang the name off.
This does occasionally create some odd effects. Last September, for example, I know I met two people called Amanda, but can only remember one of them. The act of remembering their name has persisted in memory, but actually meeting them hasn’t.
The most important aspect isn’t the actual technique (as there are plenty of other name-remembering techniques out there which presumably work fairly well), but getting into the habit of using it. It doesn’t do any good just knowing it; you have to consciously choose to apply it whenever you’re told a name you want to remember, and that’s a much harder habit to get into than you’d think.
It’s also a good technique for remembering things in general. I remembered the term ‘homonymous hemianopia’ recently by imagining Hermione from Harry Potter smoking opium and losing half of her field of vision.
Excellent explanation & examples; everything elucidated effectively.
I don’t understand the final example though. Is the memory device just to help you remember some of the letters in the name and the symptom or is there some connection my brain doesn’t make that yours does? HoMoNymous—HerMioNe, HemiAn—HArry, OPIa—OPIum?
The word “homonymous” takes care of itself in my case, since it’s a word I’m familiar with already. The “hermianopia” bit is a not-quite-portmanteau of “hermione” and “opium”.