Yesterday I finished giving my tips on how you can remember numbers. I hope to come back to the topic one day, but today I want to start writing on how to remember names. I think I will share my experience through three posts, in the same way I did it with numbers. It could be pretty embarrassing to meet a person for the second or even the third time and not to remember his/her name, especially if the person knows yours. I used to work as a teacher of English language and teach groups of students that would sometimes be from 10 to 15 participants. It is quite a challenge for a teacher to remember that many names very fast. You can naturally learn them in three or four lectures, but by using mnemonic techniques you can do it over one lecture.
So, how would I remember names of my students? Let me give you two tips today. The first tip is pretty traditional, but it works. Write down the name. People say that hand has a memory. In fact it is a reflex that helps you to memorize the name as you are writing an alphabetic image of it on a piece of paper. Putting down a name on a piece of paper turns your visual memory on and helps you to remember the name better.
The second tip is: try to remember a person whom you know and who has the same name as the person whose name you are trying to learn now. Method of association works in any field, not only in remembering names. So, try to associate this new person with the person whom you know (with the same name). See them standing together, shaking hands, saying their names to one another, being surprised that they have the same name and etc. Use humor, exaggerate, imagine them doing funny stuff together, and let them shout their names loudly. Just these two techniques will help you to remember a dozen names very fast.
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