How do you remember someone’s name when you meet them?

Do you find that when you meet someone and they introduce themselves to you that their name goes in one ear rolls across your brain and then out of the other ear to be lost forever, leaving you embarrassed and wondering how to find out who they were again? It can add stress to a social or business occasion that you just don't want, as well as feeling embarrassing!

When you remember someone’s name it makes them feel great and of course it feels great for you too when someone you met remembers who you are.

Having worked for the BBC as a presenter for years and interviewed many famous people I know that they love using your name back to you, and you instantly feel connected to them and flattered that they remembered it. You feel great about yourself.

So what can you do to help yourself remember a name when someone tells you theirs?

Five steps to remember anyone's name...

Step One

When they tell you their name ask it them what it is again! 

“I’m sorry I didn’t catch that?” By asking them again you are already starting to learn their name through repetition. It’s how we learnt our times tables when we were at school and its how I learnt my lines when I was an actor. Just the action of repeating that name helps to lock it into your mind.

Step Two

 Add some visuals.

When they introduce themselves we can use the fact that we are much better at remembering pictures than names to help. Do they have a name that is the same as a famous person or a friend of yours? Imagine them looking a little like that person or even a caricatured version of that person. So if they are called Jerry and you have a friend called Jerry who wears glasses you could imagine them with giant glasses like your friend Jerry. Or maybe you could imagine them being chased round the kitchen by a cat called Tom...Tom and Jerry!  It’s getting stuck in your mind already isn’t it !

Step Three

Take some time out. You don’t want to have them thinking that you are looking at them for too long as you come up with a way to visualise the name, so if you ask them a question that doesn’t really matter, like, “how did you get here”, or “what about this weather !”,  then you can buy some time to fix that name in your mind.

Step Four

Repeat and repeat. If you can find a way to say their name back to them before the end of the conversation then it will really help to fix it in your memory. You may do this at the end of the conversation if you are not comfortable saying someone’s name lots of times. “It was lovely talking to you Rita, I’ll see you later”

Step Five

Review that name as you leave. When you leave the conversation you can remind yourself again of a few things that you remember about that person. Review the visual image and the name you called them and it will really help to fix it in your mind.

When you do this and you remember names it really helps people to feel great and if you know how well it can help you to feel great when someone remembers your name, it’s a skill that’s well worth thinking about.

Just imagine... all that practice can help you remember other things you need to do like, picking up the milk on the way home or sending a birthday card that you need to make sure gets put in the post. The possibilities are endless.

In one of the most shocking leaflet handouts seen for a long time the NHS in Poole, Dorset are advising new mothers to feed their babies, crisps, kit kats, milky ways and other junk food to solve feeding problems with no regard at all for the future of what will clearly be fat babies, fat children and then fat teenagers and adults.

Flyers handed to new parents by Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust recommended feeding chocolate, crisps, fried foods and sugary sweets to children over the age of eight months. The guidance is aimed to help children with ‘problems managing lumpy foods’. Rather than come up with a healthy fresh alternative for parents having problems they take the easy, lazy way out that can only lead to obesity and diabetes in later life.

It's an appalling and ill thought out idea. The foods on the list that they recommend include: Quavers, Skips and Wotsits, chocolate bars such as Kit Kats and Crunchies are also recommended ‘if a child sucks food well’. Because giving babies chocolate full of sugar is clearly a good idea to some within the NHS.

Of course this isn't all of the NHS just one trust who clearly have no idea how to help people be good parents. Take yourself off to another NHS website and you are given this much better advice..

‘Do not give them [babies] foods or drinks with added sugar, or salty or fatty food, as this will make them more likely to want them as they get older.’

That is clearly common sense and perhaps some people do need to be told that so why on earth are they handing out these leaflets in Poole?

The leaflets have been defended by Tracey Nutting, Poole Hospital’s director of nursing, who said that it was the ‘first of several documents given to a small number of parents with babies and toddlers who have significant feeding problems and are failing to progress onto solid food for a variety of medical or developmental reasons’.

It seems indefensible. A leaflet shouldn't be given to anyone with this advice. In fact if it is a small number of parents then there is even less reason to have a leaflet and even more reason to have a sensible conversation and some good healthy eating advice.

My only hope is that this story sheds light on those who are not looking out for you but just for a quick fix. Frankly Tracey Nutting should be ashamed and not trying to defend this story and leaflet. It's time she took a long hard look at this shocking idea and it was withdrawn alongside an apology and some good dietary advice.