Student Experience

So Hoos Asking: How Do You Remember All Those New Names?

August 19, 2024 • By Zeina Mohammed, spr2jm@virginia.edu Zeina Mohammed, spr2jm@virginia.edu

A photo illustration of "Hello my name is.." name tags with question marks on them

You’ll probably never remember everyone’s name, and that’s OK. Here are a few techniques to help you store some. (Illustration by John DiJulio, University Communications)

The promise of meeting new people can be an exciting part of any new start, whether it’s beginning your undergraduate career, starting a new job, or returning to the University of Virginia’s Grounds for a new year. But it can be overwhelming to meet loads of strangers and daunting to keep their names straight.

Daniel Willingham is a trained cognitive psychologist and UVA psychology professor who has researched memory and the applications of cognitive psychology to education.

Q. What makes it difficult to remember names?

A. There are three main things that can make it tricky.

The first is that associations are completely arbitrary. When you meet someone new, there’s no particular reason that their name should be Susan, for example. It could be anything. So, it’s different than memorizing things for a chemistry test where you can think about what context makes the most sense. There’s no logic to help you.

There may also be confusion when you meet someone whose name is not unique to you. Say you meet a Daniel, but you already know several people with that name. So, when you go to your memory to find it later, there aren’t unique associations.

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The most substantial problem is you usually get someone’s name when you meet them, and you’ve likely also got other things on your mind. You may be worried about spinach in your teeth or meeting several people at once. We often just don’t listen very carefully when we’re introduced to someone.

Q. What can help us remember names better?

A. The thing we’re frequently told to do is to pick out some physical characteristic of the person and try to associate it with their name. If you meet me, you’ll notice I have a shaved head, so you might somehow try to associate baldness with Dan in some way.

UVA psychologist Daniel Willingham suggests a silent self-quiz to practice remembering strangers’ names, rather than awkwardly repeating the name aloud throughout a conversation. (University Communications photo)

But that’s hard to do on the fly. Social situations are pretty demanding, and you can’t just ask the person if they can give you a second to come up with a rhyme for their name.

The strategy I [recommend] is asking yourself in your head “What’s the person’s name?” when talking to them and then answering your self-quiz. You can do that whenever you want, no matter how many people are there, and it doesn’t sound as weird as repeating the person’s name in conversation several times.

I would also suggest, when you come to UVA and there are all these people you are trying to meet, spend some time reviewing names in the evening. If you have access to their social media, it can help you relate their faces to their names better.

Q. Does it make it harder to remember people when we’re putting pressure on ourselves to do so?

A. It could go either way. There’s likely a medium amount of anxiety that is beneficial because if you have no anxiety, you don’t care. It’s helpful to motivate you, but you’ll definitely reach a point where too much anxiety is going to get in the way of focusing on people’s names.

Have a burning question for our crack team of UVA historians, experts, students and staff to answer? Send your queries to HoosAsking@virginia.edu.