Remembering Names

I mentioned in an earlier post that my memory is not what it used to be, but I don’t think I’ve ever had a particularly good memory for names. I have to really work at getting a name embedded in my head. Even 30 seconds after being introduced to someone, I often have to say, “Would you please remind me of your name?”

Once I do learn a name it stays with me for a while, but if I run into someone I haven’t seen in a few months, I often find that I can’t immediately bring their name to mind. At times I’ve used what I thought was someone’s name only to discover that I’d remembered it wrong. That was really embarrassing, so I got into the habit of playing it safe. I adopted strategies to avoid using people’s names, like saying “Hey, there! How are you!”

Some 20 years ago I realized that when I avoided using someone’s name, it subtly suggested that they weren’t important to me. I decided that my strategies for avoiding embarrassment were costing me something in my relationships. I resolved that, somehow, I had to start remembering and using people’s names. So I started a project.

At the time I was using a pager for work that had a little keyboard for sending emails. It was clipped to my belt where it was readily at hand, and had a rudimentary notes database where I could store text. That’s where I decided to store the names I wanted to remember.

My first laboratory was Small World Coffee in Princeton, where I stopped every morning on my way into work. Each time I went in, if the person behind the register was someone I didn’t yet know, I introduced myself and asked their name. Then I repeated it silently to myself until I’d finished placing my order and turned away from the counter, at which point I pulled out the pager and typed in the name and a short description of the person I had just met: “Redhead with round face”; “Trendy glasses and sideburns.”

Each time I walked into the café and got into line, I looked at who was at the register and, if it was someone to whom I had already introduced myself, I pulled out my pager to remind myself of their name. Then when I got to the front of the line I’d say, “Good morning, Chris” (or whoever it was) before placing my order.

A lot of people worked at the café and there was quite a bit of turnover, so I collected a long list of names. The employees rotated between stations, so the person at the register one day might be the one making my latte the next, which often gave me the opportunity to greet the cashier by name when I placed my order and thank the barista by name when I picked it up. I discovered that if I looked up someone’s name and used it three times, I didn’t need to look it up thereafter; my memory would serve it up.

The entire exercise was only partly about remembering names; it was even more for the purpose of breaking myself of the defensive habit of avoiding using people’s names.

Before too long the employees at the café started greeting me by name, and the baristas often remembered what my usual order was and had it ready by the time I got to the counter. My relationships with the staff became friendlier and more personal. One practical benefit was that if I had to go back to the counter for something, rather than having to plaintively say, “Excuse me, miss?” I could say “Jane?” and immediately get her attention.

One day, after I had greeted both the cashier and the barista by name, the cashier said, “You know, Paul, you have a great memory for names.” I smiled and thought, if only you knew how untrue that is. But, of course, all I said was, “thank you.”

Perhaps the most dramatic single effect of this new practice happened not at the café but at work. I entered my building each morning though an adjunct entrance at the back. The receptionist in that little–used lobby was a scowling, standoffish woman, and of course I didn’t know her name. But on the first day of my Remember-and-Use-People’s-Names project, I introduced myself on my way in and asked her name. She eyed me suspiciously and, as I recall, even asked me why I was asking. I just said that she was a co–worker whom I saw every day so I thought I should know who she was. She somewhat grudgingly told me her name. (We’ll call her Helen.) As I walked away I put her name in my pager.

The next morning, on spotting her through the door before opening it, I pulled out my pager, looked up her name, and then said “Good morning, Helen” as I passed her desk. The result was nothing short of a transformation. Helen straightened up, pushed her hair back, and beamed. “Good morning!” she said brightly. From that day forward I never saw anything but a welcoming smile on her face.

That was enough to confirm my hypothesis: remembering and using people’s names makes a difference.

I’ve never stopped capturing people’s names and using them whenever I can. The pager, of course, is long gone, but today I note people’s names on my iPhone. I use an app called Outliner that lets me organize names by category, such as everyone in my neighborhood, or the people who work at the stores I frequent, or — heaven help me — my own relatives. (There are so many of them!)

These days my 89-year-old mother laments that her memory isn’t what it once was and she has to write things down. “Welcome to my world,” I tell her.