Sorry I've forgotten your name

We have all been in meetings or at social events where we got introduced to a bunch of people. Afterwards when we try to recall the encounter, the names can be hard to remember. Quite often someone will say, ‘That guy from sales, what was he called?’. It is easier to remember all types of information about someone, than their name. We are better at remembering what they do, where they come from, what they specialise in, what their hobbies are. This is backed up by a number of studies.

One such study gave people fake names and biographies to remember. In recall tests, only 30% could recall surnames, compared to 68% and 69% for hobbies and jobs respectively.

In another study, participants found it easier to remember that a person is a potter, i.e. maker of pots, than if their surname is actually Potter.

The bad news is that the jury is out on why this occurs. Some theories are that lots of similar names (lots of Johns, Marys, Smiths) interfere with each other and this inhibits our ability to form durable memories about someone’s specific name.

However others would suggest that familiar names are easier to recall and it should be easier to remember someone called John or Mary, rather than a name we have never heard of before.

The good news is that research has shown that the semantic meaning we attach to names, or the different levels at which we process them, helps our ability to recall.

For example, we meet John Smith, we use his initials JS, he happened to be a nice guy so we associate ‘Just Super’ with his name. If he wasn’t that nice, maybe ‘Just Stupid’ would have been more appropriate. We have now given his name greater semantic significance and done some additional processing to come up with ‘Just Super’.

It is now much more memorable and we have different cues and levels of processing to assist recall. Next time we meet ‘JS’ ‘Just Super’ nice John, we won’t be stuck for a name or get caught trying to read his name badge. This might be why nick names tend to stick and are easily remembered.

The moral of the story is not to get too frustrated or embarrassed if you can’t recall a name, it happens to most of us. If you want to remember names better, associate them with some other information about the meeting or characteristics of the person involved. Don’t get too upset either if someone you meet can’t remember your name, it’s not personal. Just point them in the direction of this blog. Hopefully they will think you are closer to the 'Super' than the 'Stupid' end of the scale.