Remembering Names
A person's name is, to that person, the sweetest and most important sound in any language. It sets them apart — makes them unique among all others. Forget it or misspell it and you have placed yourself at a sharp disadvantage. Use it correctly and you have paid a subtle, very effective compliment.
Why Names Carry This Weight
People are so proud of their names that they strive to perpetuate them at any cost. P.T. Barnum offered his grandson $25,000 to call himself "Barnum" Seeley because he had no one to carry on his name. Libraries, museums, and university buildings exist largely because donors could not bear to think their names might perish. The New York Public Library has Astor and Lenox collections; the Metropolitan Museum perpetuates Altman and J.P. Morgan.
Jim Farley discovered early in life that the average person is more interested in their own name than in all the other names on earth combined. Farley built a system for remembering people's names — finding complete name, family details, business, political opinions — and by 46 had become chairman of the Democratic National Committee and Postmaster General of the United States, despite never having attended high school. He could call 50,000 people by their first names. That ability helped him put Franklin D. Roosevelt in the White House in 1932.
The Mechanism
Andrew Carnegie understood the psychology early. As a boy in Scotland, he got a nest of rabbits and nothing to feed them. He told neighborhood children he would name the bunnies in their honor if they gathered enough clover. The plan worked instantly, and Carnegie never forgot it.
Decades later, when he was competing with George Pullman for sleeping-car contracts from the Union Pacific Railroad, he proposed a merger. Pullman asked what they'd call the new company. Carnegie replied promptly: "The Pullman Palace Car Company, of course." Pullman's face brightened. "Come into my room. Let's talk it over." That conversation made industrial history.
Earlier, when trying to sell steel to the Pennsylvania Railroad, Carnegie built a mill in Pittsburgh and named it the "Edgar Thomson Steel Works" — after J. Edgar Thomson, the railroad's president. When the Pennsylvania Railroad needed steel rails, where do you suppose Thomson bought them?
"To recall a voter's name is statesmanship. To forget it is oblivion." The same principle governs every relationship from business to friendship.
The Technique
Most people don't remember names because they don't take the time to concentrate and fix them in their minds. They make excuses: too busy. But Franklin D. Roosevelt found time to remember the names of mechanics he met once.
Napoleon III of France remembered the name of every person he met, despite the demands of royal duties. His technique:
- If you didn't hear the name clearly, say: "Sorry, I didn't get the name clearly." If it's unusual: "How is it spelled?"
- Repeat the name several times during the conversation to anchor it.
- Associate the name with the person's features, expression, and general appearance.
- When alone, write the name down, look at it, concentrate on it, then destroy the paper — you've added a visual impression to the auditory one.
Emerson put it plainly: "Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices." This is one of them.
The Daily Scale
Ken Nottingham, a General Motors employee, had lunch every day at the company cafeteria. The woman at the sandwich counter always had a scowl — she'd been making sandwiches for two hours and he was just another sandwich. On day two, he noticed her name tag. He smiled and said, "Hello, Eunice." She forgot the scale, piled on the ham, gave him three leaves of lettuce and heaped the potato chips until they fell off the plate.
The information you're conveying or the request you're making takes on special importance when you approach the situation with the other person's name. From the waiter to the executive, the name works magic.
Sid Levy called on a customer named Nicodemus Papadoulos whose name everyone shortened to "Nick." Levy rehearsed the full name before his call. When he said "Good afternoon, Mr. Nicodemus Papadoulos," the man was silent for what seemed forever. Finally, with tears rolling down his cheeks: "Mr. Levy, in all the fifteen years I have been in this country, nobody has ever made the effort to call me by my right name."
Connections
- desire-to-feel-important — remembering and using names is one of the most direct ways to meet the deepest urge in human nature
- genuine-interest-in-others — the motivation to learn and remember names is what genuine interest actually looks like in practice
- give-honest-and-sincere-appreciation — using someone's name is a form of acknowledgment that they are a distinct individual worth noticing