7 Smart Ways To Remember Names – Communication Skills

“Hey! How are you?” The first thing that comes instantaneously out of your mouth when you see an acquaintance but your mind is still hung up with confusion, trying to figure out the person’s name. Have you faced a situation like this? A Majority of us go through similar confusions and uncomfortable situations often.

We meet many people with familiar names, unfamiliar names, easy names, tough names and hundreds of names with hundreds of permutations and combinations of alphabets. And remembering these names can be challenging.

But if you think what is in name and why so much for remembering a name, let’s tell you that the great personalities in the world who are good with people skills and communication keep track of most of the names. Using the name of a person in a conversation helps to connect with the person better, it gives a sense of importance to the other person, it grabs his attention and not to forget it’s their names and people love to hear that (People might not like their names, but they wouldn’t complain if you use it in conversations as they can sense the attention you paying attention to them)

 

To make conversations nicer and enhance the quality, here are 7 easy tips to remember a person’s name

1. Use Your Eyes And Ears

Look at the way a person says out his name and listen to the pronunciation carefully. The most crucial step. It might be difficult to concentrate on both initially, but it gets better later. And this step is the base for you to work on it further.

 

2. Ask Again, Ask To Spell

It’s ok you are not the only person who is finding hard to pronounce the name or didn’t hear the name properly. Ask them to spell (You can easily remember a name if you know the spellings and pronunciation.)

 

3. Repeat It Immediately

If someone introduces themselves as “Hi, I am John.” Then the one of the most effective and useful ways to respond is to repeat the name immediately and say, “Hey John, nice to meet you.”

The immediate name repeat helps in storing the name in your mind. You can remember sentences said in your own voice better.

 

4. Use The Names Often

It shows how interested you are in talking to that person. And everybody likes to talk to someone who is interested in talking to them.

More the repetition better the chances to remember. Make sure you don’t overuse the names. It can sound odd when it’s overused and can make the conversation look artificial or manipulative.

 

5. Make Associations

A-Apple, B-Ball, C-Cat. This is how we associated alphabets and in the similar way we can associate names with objects or living things or also nonliving things or can even associate with Gods names.

Ex: Lily- flower, Vidya- Knowledge :D, etc

Also, you can try to associate to the things they like or the place where you first met them.

Ex: She likes Tea and her name is Tina (I know it isn’t the best example. But associations like this work. At leat this worked.) 

 

6. Write It Down

Write down the name, see it, spell it loud, let your brain store it. I know you can’t do this immediately when someone introduces themselves to you, but you can manage to make a minute’s time to write down their names later, so that you don’t miss on that the next time you meet the person.

 

7. Apologize And Ask Again

If you forgot it, it’s ok ask again. Apologize to them, tell them you missed it at the first and you want to learn their names. People appreciate your genuineness and interest.  But don’t be an irresponsible asker. If you ask again make sure you will try to remember it for later usage.

 

Names can be a good help for an effective communication. Use them and give the other person the joy of talking with you.

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