39 ms·

And "Remember their name".

drivers99 5mo ago
I remember the book saying something like "a person's name is the most beautiful sound in the world to them." The book may say to say their name back to them (I don't remember right now), but that's not what I took away from it. It reminded me of when people would make fun of my name (first and/or last) or bring up someone famous who has the same first ("Donald Duck") or last name ("are you related Joan Rivers?"), or someone famous who sounds like my first and last name put together (Doc Rivers), and I never thought it was funny. When I see people make fun of other people's names, the recipient never seemed to enjoy it either.
- smelendez 5mo ago
  Yeah, you also have to remember that someone has heard every possible joke about their name and their appearance a million times. I do think Dale Carnegie overemphasizes the importance of saying people's names, and in fact saying people's names in conversation often sounds forced and manipulative, but maybe that's just a cultural shift over the past century.
  - technothrasher 5mo ago
    I've got the same last name as a sitcom character from the 1980s. I used to get so tired of people pointing that out. Luckily nobody really remembers the show anymore, let alone the character. But, yeah, it usually sets off my spidey sense when somebody keeps using my first name in conversation. It's just seems weirdly unnecessary, so it makes me wonder why they're doing it.
- cgag 5mo ago
  I don’t have any problem with my name, and it feels manipulative and overfamiliar and I assume someone’s trying to Carnegie me into something if they use it. Doc Rivers is an awesome name though.
- 98codes 5mo ago
  Saying someone's name back to them is also a memory trick to help yourself remember their name for next time.
- xp84 5mo ago
  You’re for sure right about the name thing. It’s so hard to resist commenting on names for a lot of people, I think, due to the extreme asymmetry of novelty. When you meet someone named Michael Jackson, that’s such novel information to you: “there’s a guy right here in front of me who is named the same thing as a famous musician!” Meanwhile, from Michael’s perspective, they’ve been named Michael Jackson and getting comments and jokes about it near-daily for 35 years - and it’s really a boring non-story - they’re named after their grandfather, their parents didn’t care about the other Michael Jackson one way or the other, and they themselves also neither like or hate MJ.
  - et-al 5mo ago
    Michael... Bolton? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhxRAsnizbk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhxRAsnizbk
    - xp84 5mo ago
      This is 100% what I was thinking of, I considered using that name in my comment actually!!
  - philsnow 5mo ago
    They might like to hear "Michael Jackson? Like the guy who wrote the book about scotch??" once in a while
  - Slow_Hand 5mo ago
    I had a friend named Michael Jackson who went by a different first name. I didn't even know until several years later when he showed a group of us his drivers license and accidentally outed himself.
  - c22 5mo ago
    This is like when you're working retail and the scanner glitches or the barcode isn't registered and the customer says "I guess that one's free then!" and you have to say "ha ha, very droll sir" as if you didn't hear that same joke yesterday.
- nozzlegear 5mo ago
  My full first name is Joshua, but when I was a kid everyone would just call me Josh. That was until 5th grade, when another Josh joined my class, and whose last name just happened to come right before mine in the roll call. I loathed that he "stole" my name and (in my head) made me sound like the repeat, so from that point on I decided that I would be Joshua because it sounded "fancier" to me. Years later, my choir teacher would sing that old "Joshua fought the battle of Jericho" song whenever he passed me in the hallways, which always made me laugh.
  - technothrasher 5mo ago
    I've got a life long friend who's full first name is Josh, derived from the Japanese name Yosh. People often try to call him Joshua and it annoys the hell out of him.
    - deleted 5mo ago
      [deleted]
    - lovemenot 5mo ago
      Yosh would always be an abbreviation in Japanese. And only done for foreigners, not for other Japanese. Yoshihiro or Yoshiyuki would likely be called Yoshi by their friends.
- jodrellblank 5mo ago
  > "I remember the book saying something like "a person's name is the most beautiful sound in the world to them."" Nobody made fun of my name particularly, it's not like anyone famous, I just don't like it very much. I don't call myself by my name in my head, or on the internet. For most of my life my friends and coworkers had nicknames for me and I prefered that. I associate my name with official paperwork, formal situations, negative situations, aquaintances, and salespeople. Perhaps because of this I have a bit of fixation on names (people, places, and products) and judging them to sound good or bad. Some names sound great or fine and it's no surprise to me if 'Robert' likes his name and likes hearing it. But I struggle to imagine that people called 'Helpless' or 'Abuse-not'[1] thinking those are the most beautiful sound in the world. [1] https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/09/puritan-names-lists-of-bizarre-religious-nomenclature-used-by-puritans.html https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/09/puritan-names-lists...
helterskelter 5mo ago
Hah. I'm ADHD and I used to be terrible about remembering people's names -- like, their names didn't even register and I couldn't tell you what it was 30 seconds later. It wasn't that I didn't care about the person, it was just that their name would never stick. Anyway, I finally made enough people feel bad and embarrassed myself enough that I started compensating and made a point to remember basically everybody's name that I met. The change was really surprising, people notice that sort of thing and they make an effort to return the same kind of energy. My general attitude about people since then has become a lot more positive because I realized that overall, most people really don't need a whole lot of impetus to show their better side, and it's not like it costs me anything to treat somebody with a little more consideration.
- GolfPopper 5mo ago
  As someone with very similar issues with names, how did you start remembering names?
  - sanswork 5mo ago
    I have a list in reminders called names so when someone tells me their name as soon as I can use my phone without it being impolite I open it up and add a quick note with the names. - neighbour watering lawn Jack, wife Gemma, daughter Jane Then I try to remember it later in the day and confirm with the note. I do that the next couple days and it's locked in and I can delete the note.
    - ssl-3 5mo ago
      I've found that the same works for me when I put forth the tiny bit of time and effort to actually do it. Just a quick note somewhere (phone is easy-enough, or for a long time I carried a waterproof Field Notes notebook with a Fisher Space Pen and that worked a bit better), to be reviewed later. Maybe that review happens an hour from now. Maybe it happens in a week, or a month. Or maybe all of these. Refreshers are good. I don't even have to write much, if anything, about the person; the mere act of taking down the names usually helps a ton with my ability to recall the context later. If I can remember when and where I took that note (which I can often do very easily), then the rest of the details fill themselves in quite nicely. (I don't erase the notes, so as to let them remain useful to me later. I don't care if that creeps anyone out; my intentions are pure and the problem I'm trying to solve is very real. Its creep-value is really no worse than the contact lists that I've transferred between cell phones, pocket computers, and now pocket supercomputers for nearly a quarter of a century.)
scotty79 5mo ago
Oh, no, please don't. Don't use my name before we are actual friends with actual business in remembering each others names. There's very few things that more strongly put me on alert against a person than them mentioning my name to me.
nunez 5mo ago
If I'm trying to remember someone's name, I'll say it at the end of interactions more often than I normally would and make some kind of memory device out of it. If it's someone at a place I frequent, I'll add a location based reminder. It's a little much, but I've found that people, more often than not, do like being called by their names.

I remember the book saying something like "a person's name is the most beautiful sound in the world to them." The book may say to say their name back to them (I don't remember right now), but that's not what I took away from it. It reminded me of when people would make fun of my name (first and/or last) or bring up someone famous who has the same first ("Donald Duck") or last name ("are you related Joan Rivers?"), or someone famous who sounds like my first and last name put together (Doc Rivers), and I never thought it was funny. When I see people make fun of other people's names, the recipient never seemed to enjoy it either.

smelendez 5mo ago
Yeah, you also have to remember that someone has heard every possible joke about their name and their appearance a million times. I do think Dale Carnegie overemphasizes the importance of saying people's names, and in fact saying people's names in conversation often sounds forced and manipulative, but maybe that's just a cultural shift over the past century.
- technothrasher 5mo ago
  I've got the same last name as a sitcom character from the 1980s. I used to get so tired of people pointing that out. Luckily nobody really remembers the show anymore, let alone the character. But, yeah, it usually sets off my spidey sense when somebody keeps using my first name in conversation. It's just seems weirdly unnecessary, so it makes me wonder why they're doing it.
cgag 5mo ago
I don’t have any problem with my name, and it feels manipulative and overfamiliar and I assume someone’s trying to Carnegie me into something if they use it. Doc Rivers is an awesome name though.
98codes 5mo ago
Saying someone's name back to them is also a memory trick to help yourself remember their name for next time.
xp84 5mo ago
You’re for sure right about the name thing. It’s so hard to resist commenting on names for a lot of people, I think, due to the extreme asymmetry of novelty. When you meet someone named Michael Jackson, that’s such novel information to you: “there’s a guy right here in front of me who is named the same thing as a famous musician!” Meanwhile, from Michael’s perspective, they’ve been named Michael Jackson and getting comments and jokes about it near-daily for 35 years - and it’s really a boring non-story - they’re named after their grandfather, their parents didn’t care about the other Michael Jackson one way or the other, and they themselves also neither like or hate MJ.
- et-al 5mo ago
  Michael... Bolton? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhxRAsnizbk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhxRAsnizbk
  - xp84 5mo ago
    This is 100% what I was thinking of, I considered using that name in my comment actually!!
- philsnow 5mo ago
  They might like to hear "Michael Jackson? Like the guy who wrote the book about scotch??" once in a while
- Slow_Hand 5mo ago
  I had a friend named Michael Jackson who went by a different first name. I didn't even know until several years later when he showed a group of us his drivers license and accidentally outed himself.
- c22 5mo ago
  This is like when you're working retail and the scanner glitches or the barcode isn't registered and the customer says "I guess that one's free then!" and you have to say "ha ha, very droll sir" as if you didn't hear that same joke yesterday.
nozzlegear 5mo ago
My full first name is Joshua, but when I was a kid everyone would just call me Josh. That was until 5th grade, when another Josh joined my class, and whose last name just happened to come right before mine in the roll call. I loathed that he "stole" my name and (in my head) made me sound like the repeat, so from that point on I decided that I would be Joshua because it sounded "fancier" to me. Years later, my choir teacher would sing that old "Joshua fought the battle of Jericho" song whenever he passed me in the hallways, which always made me laugh.
- technothrasher 5mo ago
  I've got a life long friend who's full first name is Josh, derived from the Japanese name Yosh. People often try to call him Joshua and it annoys the hell out of him.
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  - lovemenot 5mo ago
    Yosh would always be an abbreviation in Japanese. And only done for foreigners, not for other Japanese. Yoshihiro or Yoshiyuki would likely be called Yoshi by their friends.
jodrellblank 5mo ago
> "I remember the book saying something like "a person's name is the most beautiful sound in the world to them."" Nobody made fun of my name particularly, it's not like anyone famous, I just don't like it very much. I don't call myself by my name in my head, or on the internet. For most of my life my friends and coworkers had nicknames for me and I prefered that. I associate my name with official paperwork, formal situations, negative situations, aquaintances, and salespeople. Perhaps because of this I have a bit of fixation on names (people, places, and products) and judging them to sound good or bad. Some names sound great or fine and it's no surprise to me if 'Robert' likes his name and likes hearing it. But I struggle to imagine that people called 'Helpless' or 'Abuse-not'[1] thinking those are the most beautiful sound in the world. [1] https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/09/puritan-names-lists-of-bizarre-religious-nomenclature-used-by-puritans.html https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/09/puritan-names-lists...

helterskelter 5mo ago

Hah. I'm ADHD and I used to be terrible about remembering people's names -- like, their names didn't even register and I couldn't tell you what it was 30 seconds later. It wasn't that I didn't care about the person, it was just that their name would never stick. Anyway, I finally made enough people feel bad and embarrassed myself enough that I started compensating and made a point to remember basically everybody's name that I met. The change was really surprising, people notice that sort of thing and they make an effort to return the same kind of energy. My general attitude about people since then has become a lot more positive because I realized that overall, most people really don't need a whole lot of impetus to show their better side, and it's not like it costs me anything to treat somebody with a little more consideration.

GolfPopper 5mo ago
As someone with very similar issues with names, how did you start remembering names?
- sanswork 5mo ago
  I have a list in reminders called names so when someone tells me their name as soon as I can use my phone without it being impolite I open it up and add a quick note with the names. - neighbour watering lawn Jack, wife Gemma, daughter Jane Then I try to remember it later in the day and confirm with the note. I do that the next couple days and it's locked in and I can delete the note.
  - ssl-3 5mo ago
    I've found that the same works for me when I put forth the tiny bit of time and effort to actually do it. Just a quick note somewhere (phone is easy-enough, or for a long time I carried a waterproof Field Notes notebook with a Fisher Space Pen and that worked a bit better), to be reviewed later. Maybe that review happens an hour from now. Maybe it happens in a week, or a month. Or maybe all of these. Refreshers are good. I don't even have to write much, if anything, about the person; the mere act of taking down the names usually helps a ton with my ability to recall the context later. If I can remember when and where I took that note (which I can often do very easily), then the rest of the details fill themselves in quite nicely. (I don't erase the notes, so as to let them remain useful to me later. I don't care if that creeps anyone out; my intentions are pure and the problem I'm trying to solve is very real. Its creep-value is really no worse than the contact lists that I've transferred between cell phones, pocket computers, and now pocket supercomputers for nearly a quarter of a century.)

scotty79 5mo ago

Oh, no, please don't. Don't use my name before we are actual friends with actual business in remembering each others names. There's very few things that more strongly put me on alert against a person than them mentioning my name to me.

nunez 5mo ago

If I'm trying to remember someone's name, I'll say it at the end of interactions more often than I normally would and make some kind of memory device out of it. If it's someone at a place I frequent, I'll add a location based reminder. It's a little much, but I've found that people, more often than not, do like being called by their names.