Suppose you join a new club, or start a new job and meet a group of 15 to 20 new people all at once. How long would it take you to learn all of their names?
When faced with so many new names do you do anything to help you remember?
@futurebird My classes are generally in the 15-30 student range, and I usually know all names within 4 meetings.
I have colleagues who just never learn students' names. They go all semester relying on just calling out names from the roll. Different brains work differently and different people have different priorities, I guess.
@futurebird@sauropods. Back when I was an English teacher (here in Tokyo), I made it a point to learn all my students' names in the first few days of classes, which both amazed them and made them feel like I cared for them individually.
@futurebird I have moderate face blindness, so I will often get names wrong too as it's difficult for me to match the face with the names I've just learned.
If I'm introduced to three or fewer people, there's a slight chance that I can force myself to remember, but any more than that I just straight up tell people that I will get it wrong.
Do you feel annoyed when someone can't seem to remember your name and must ask you?
@futurebird I remember people more by faces, personality, and context than by name. In fact, I usually have to experience a proper name around three or four times before my brain realises it's important enough to remember. The reason I specified "proper names" is that I have the exact same problem with place names.
@futurebird It wouldn't be fair: I can never remember anyone else's name. 😆
@futurebird Nobody ever forgets my name...I feel bad not remembering theirs.
@futurebird no, because the shoe is very often on the other foot.
@futurebird if possible I lookup teams in Slack, Signal, w/e and try to match the names I read there with the people I meet. I do actually invest time in this between meetings: do I know all the people in this team? Is there anyone with the same first name as another in another team? (Searching in Slack is very helpful for this last one)
@futurebird Given how terrible I am at remembering names I can’t get annoyed at others forgetting my name!
I typically have the opposite problem. People who obviously think they know me start chatting and I have no idea who they are!
I've always *thought* I had a problem remembering names, but really everyone seems to say this and I think my natural retention is about average. And my profession means I need to remember an unnatural number of names.
After much emotional agony I just started making flash cards. The only thing that kept me from doing this for so long was the feeling that it was "business bro" behavior. But, it was the best decision ever. Mostly because it makes me less flustered and stressed.
@futurebird I work with Deaf people, so on top of the regular English names, I need to recall sign names. Despite being a really visual person, I have to work harder to connect the sign name than I do for the English one. In some ways, I’ll *always* be a hearing-brained person, despite my time in this career and community.
Every year I have one student with a name that's pronounced in a different way than I expect. I've had this happen with the name "Ann" (the student went by "on" not "ahn")
I still haven't perfected the solution to that one and feel terrible when I get the stress or vowels wrong for the second or third time.
The more subtile a name the faster the student tends to say it... probably because they are tired of correcting their teachers, but that makes it harder.
@futurebird how do you use flashcards? Write names and reminder info when you go home after meeting? Or?
@futurebird I've silently made new colleagues a cheat-sheet in the past because our company didn't have some sort of intranet register with photos - so they got a hand-drawn floor plan with desks and names
With my own name?
I never liked it when adults would remember my name as a child/teen... it often meant they were paying too much attention to me and that meant I could get away with less.
My students have a funny sing-song way of saying my name that I find very funny and endearing now "Missus --- ---- ---!"
Mostly because they are asking for help and they think the problems are too difficult. (They are not 'too difficult' apply your mind like a laser, it will fall apart as soon as you do.)
@futurebird It's about context. Working as a conselour at summercamp - yes - it's bad, kids might feel un-favoured when i remember one name and not the other.
After 2 weeks meeting the same person at a pub - no, not at all.
It's greast when somwone "forgets" mine because i forget names all the time.
I use digital flash cards and the school's yearbooks for photos. Then I can just flip through each class on the train a few times and after about 4 or 5 sessions I have them all.
When I'm coaching/mentoring students I make a big effort to learn their names because it feels like a safety issue. It's quite hard when there are more than a dozen of them and I only see them a couple hours a week.
The other big challenge for me is professional contacts I see once or twice annually at conferences.
What do you have on the other side of the flashcards? I feel hesitant to ask people for their photo.
I only see the parents once a year and really hope they don't think I know all of their names. Good lord. They do tend to introduce themselves with "I'm Bobby's mom" (THANK YOU)
Although... sometimes it's obvious that it's Bobby's mom.
I don't know why people worry their kid won't grow up to be just like them.
I can get photos from the yearbook.
If I didn't have that I'd insist on taking group photo on the first day of class I think. I need to know all of their names somehow.
@futurebird I meet different groups of 30-60 people once a year at conferences. If they send round a group photo afterwards, I try to make notes and match names/conversations to faces. It sometimes works. If not, I'm fine with asking for a reminder (preferably not more than once per meeting...)
At more "business networking" events, I sometimes ask if I can take a photo of a new-to-me acquaintance with their name badge 🤷♀️
for two years in my early twenties I attended a school that was a lot like primary school in that most of the classes were with the same people and it was every weekday from morning until early afternoon.
6 months in, during lunch, somebody complained about a Nicole in our class and my response was "We have a Nicole in our class?!" They spent several minutes describing her before I knew who they meant.
@futurebird my biggest problem with names is actually learning someone's name, most especially the names of people I instantly get along with. There are more than a few people who I "catch up with" whenever I see them(update them on raccoons, show them cat pictures, stuff like that) whose name I might not know for years.
Cat though, I never have a problem with. No cat that comes near me leaves without a name or a nickname within an hour of meeting them.
Oh, we want a tale of your childhood shenanigans !
(maybe I should say "tales" as there should be a lot of them ?)
@futurebird since my profession is a more visually-biased one (and most folks I come into contact with know this), if I can’t remember a name I’ll usually say “I’m good with faces but horrible with names; what’s yours, again?” and that usually produces a grin and a name to go with it from them. Mind you: it took me decades to figure out this strategy :/
When I started using flashcards for names I felt bad about it (since it seemed like someone who really cared about the people around them would just naturally remember names)
But, when I started doing it I realized it was a chance to think about each student a little without the classroom distractions, so, it stoped seeming cynical to me.
One fall I had over 200 new names to learn. That's what drove me to the cards. No normal person could learn that many names "naturally"
If names cause you stress I say "make the cards" it will save you so much distress and it's fun to see if you can say every name that you have learned each day "in context."
@futurebird I know it’s a telemarketer immediately when they ask for Ap-ril and not A-pril.
Doesn't show lack of connection. Shows you care!
This is one thing I love about some support groups. It's customary to say your name not only at the introduction part of the meeting but also at the start of each time you share. This is super, super helpful.
I'd like to know where the expectation comes from that you're supposed to remember everyone's names after only one introduction. I don't know anybody who can do that.
I get mixed results.
We have a place in our online system where students can record their own name and I need to twist the arm of the tech staff to have them all do this when they set up their machines in the fall.
Hearing the student say it is the best.
I think I might ask students to do this during our first two classes as they also need to get to know each other.
Not a bad idea.
Sadly I've had other teachers tell me the wrong way to say a name with great confidence ... which I kind of get, I might make the same mistake if the student hasn't clued me in that I'm doing it wrong.
I dunno how widespread it is, but the past two places I worked, in phone or zoom meetings it was also customary there to say your name when you start to speak. I was especially grateful for this in phone meetings, because it's hard for me to recognize voices of even people I know.
@futurebird My best "receipt" for being bad at remembering faces:
In one of the Marvel movies, there's a masked character. Halfway through the movie, he takes it off and the audience audibly gasps. I'm thinking, "Am I supposed to recognize this person?"
@futurebird @factress We were taught to make classroom sets of flashcards in teachers' college, with notes like kids' favorite things or pets, but to not write stuff like 'weird hair' because the cards exist and could therefore be read by other humans so please be conscientious. So my cards have little codes like WH. When I had classes of 70 I made them form permanent pods of 5 because I can remember 5x 9 groups, but not 9x 5 groups or 70, and you can personalize instruction quite well that way.
@futurebird Just a quick thought: I think it's super polite to actually use people's names in conversation. E.g., "good morning, Bob" instead of just "good morning".
Our university assigns everyone a unique user ID that's a combination of letters and numbers in a form like "mst3k"*. Oddly, I find it easier to remember people's user IDs than their names, and often think of the user ID first.
* Specially reserved as an example, and easily remembered by Mystery Science Theater 3000 fans.
We can print out a photo roster for our classes. If I'm teaching more than two lectures to the same group of students, I print it out and try to use their names as often as possible.
If the size of the class is right, I try to hand back assignments before class using the photo roster as a guide. In that case, I have no qualms about visibly looking at the list and then asking are you 'X", this really helps me learn names.
@futurebird My problem is I have hearing damage that I conceal. I probably can't hear when I am told everyone's names, and I tend to keep that fact about me a closely-guarded secret. I nod, then try through other means to discover the names I pretended to hear.
@futurebird Stop naming each ant individually 😉
...I'll get my coat
@futurebird I am sometimes faced with this at work. I am terrible at remembering names so I take it as a challenge. I group people (in my head) and try to associate features or traits with each, so that it's easier to remember. I also repeat the names as often as possible while we're interacting. I'm becoming better at this "game" if I can remember everyone's name the following day I'm happy.
@futurebird most of my teachers couldn't pronounce my first name. But teachers remember the kid who knows the answers to nearly all the questions, and correctly uses words normally only found in college-level vocabulary. Aside from that, it was obvious in so many ways my parents couldn't afford all the little things everyone else deems essential. Like shoes that don't have holes in the soles, or a coat that fits. There was no way I could blend in with other children.
@futurebird perhaps that is why those supervising children need to learn names.
(My experience as to why remembering names is important was volunteering at a youth-organisation with groups of 10 to 25 6-11 year olds*. Or at work.
Although I am more CBA at work, there is much Graham, Alison, Paul, Jane, Nick and Simon. So a first name is often not enough...
* for example there is a strange magic power to saying "Lhotse, yes your brother is annoying but it does not mean you get to bite him".)
@futurebird If it's any consolation I've found over *cough* years that native English speakers seem to say my name back with the wrong vowel sounds _even when the only version they've heard_ is me saying it (correctly, sometimes for years).
People seem to have a subconscious mapping of how names are meant to sound and they instinctively stick to it.
It's not even a name with unusual vowel sounds for English.
@futurebird
I'm not face blind, but I am terrible at remembering faces, so it's a relief when someone forgets my name.
@futurebird I'm not sure about the "meet a group" one, but then went:
✔ Think before / after meetings (32%)
✔ Yes (5%)
✔ Just ask (20%)
✔ Generally no (98%)
Coincidentally the question of being good with names crossed my own mind recently, to do with watching the credits of some programme or other. I find it really tough to retain these names from credits, having to concentrate like the clappers to remember a single one or two. But in real-life situations I seem to remember names really well.
Like, e.g. my local greengrocers, the few of the staff whose names I've learnt, their names stuck fast after being told once. Even the owner (co-owner with his wife, if I remember that detail right?) who I've never met, I was once told his name by my old gas boiler engineer who happened to be friends with him. His name has stuck too.
A weird memory-jogging thing I do, btw: Go through the alphabet – handily a finite set – and see if any letters ring a bell as starting someone's first / surname.
@futurebird
When teaching classes of around 20 students, it always took me several classes to get all the names right. Once I’d got some assignments back and had some class discussions, I could connect personalities and ideas to the names and faces and then they’d stick.
@futurebird
But I learned that for me it’s better not to use any tricks or shortcuts to learn the names because they’d backfire. If I had 70 names to learn, and similar looking students in different classes, at first it helps narrow down the possibilities: that’s either Jen or Beth. But then they’d both get stuck at “either Jen or Beth” long after I’d learned the other names. This was annoying but tolerable if Jen and Beth didn’t know each other or know why I was mixing them up.
@futurebird Never. I got hired, slowly climbed the ladder for 25 years, directly or indirectly hired replacements for 95% of the department, signed their timesheets for years, and still can only remember a couple dozen names.
@futurebird this is why I really like virtual meetings, the name is always right there below their face
I've taken to warning people up front that it's not gonna happen and it's not personal.
@futurebird notes during the meeting, names listed as others are seated, maybe a comment they made. Is this the same as thinking about it? But it takes many reputations for me to remember a name. Faces I remember but the name that goes with the face…not so much
@futurebird On the first day on my current job, there was a guy who greeted me with "Hi, [my name]". I had no choice but to learn his name, so I could answer the greeting with "Hi, [his name]"
@znoteer It can be. For example, my sign name is “king” but with the letter D. But I prefer just D-E-A-N. Some folks are their initials, like my friend David, who’s D-T. Or Angie, who’s “shaky A.”
Then there are the non-initialized name signs, like my friend Rocky’s daughter Lily, whose name sign is the middle finger of the “5” handshape moving gently in a downward motion on the side of the chin. Almost like “prefer,” but in a different placement and a slightly different movement.
@znoteer Correct. There are lots of name signs like that. They’ve become more popular lately, at least from my experience.
@futurebird As a teacher I worked hard to learn students' names. In a new workplace ... I'm fine taking a few weeks and don't do anything special.
@futurebird I don’t worry and I don’t bother to ask; “hey” works
@futurebird OK, this was a surprise. I thought I was in an embarrassed minority.
@futurebird I'm great at remembering both names and faces - it's just putting them together that is the problem.