Forgetting someone's name moments after being introduced is one of the most universally shared social embarrassments — but according to Tansel Ali, a four-time Australian memory champion, it is entirely fixable. Ali, who famously memorised two complete Yellow Pages phone books in under a month, says the struggle with names is not a personal failing. It is, he argues, a structural problem with how our brains process language — and one that responds well to targeted training.

Why names are so hard to remember

The core issue, according to Ali, is that names carry no inherent meaning. "Names are just abstract words when you think about it," he explains. When we hear a name for the first time, there is nothing concrete for our brains to latch on to — no image, no story, no sensory hook. It lands and, almost immediately, drifts away.

A compounding factor is what Ali describes as "cognitive switching" — the mental fragmentation caused by constant screen use and social media scrolling. He compares the effect to running fifty browser tabs simultaneously. "If you're on TikTok for an hour and then suddenly try to read a book, you're not going to be able to read more than a few pages," he says. "And when you do, you'll be like, 'What did I just read?'" The same cognitive overload that makes sustained reading difficult also cripples our ability to encode new information — including the name of the person standing right in front of us.

The visual association technique that actually works

Ali's primary solution is to build a vivid mental image tied directly to the person's name at the moment you hear it. Rather than passively registering a sound, you immediately convert it into something visual and memorable.

His examples are deliberately simple. Someone named Sandra might be pictured with sand scattered through her hair — an absurd image, but one that sticks. Someone named Steve might be imagined with a stiff, rigid posture, playing on the phonetic similarity of the two words. The stranger and more specific the image, the more durable the memory.

The technique also scales with additional information. If Steve mentions he owns three dogs, those animals get folded into the same mental scene. Over time, the image becomes richer, and the name becomes anchored to a growing web of associations rather than floating free as an abstract sound.

Ali acknowledges this demands real mental effort, particularly at first. "When you start out learning these skills, it will take a bit of time," he says. Memory, in his view, is a discipline like any other — something that improves with consistent practice. "The more you train, the quicker and better you get at it."

Why the old 'repeat it three times' trick falls flat

Many people have been taught to simply repeat a new name three times in conversation as a way of cementing it. Ali is unconvinced. Repetition alone, he says, does nothing to solve the underlying problem: "You're just repeating abstract information, something that doesn't make sense, so you're not really remembering it." Without an accompanying visual or conceptual anchor, the name remains as slippery as it was the first time you heard it.

Could unusual names actually help future generations?

There may be an unexpected upside to the modern trend of parents choosing distinctive, unconventional names for their children. Ali notes that the names most likely to slip his mind — even during dedicated memory competitions — were the most common ones. "The most memorable names are the ones that are unique," he says, recalling that straightforward names such as Rachel or Dan were the hardest to retain under competition conditions.

The more distinctive a name, the easier it is to build a vivid image around it — which means that children given unusual names may find the world remembers them just a little more readily than those saddled with the most familiar ones.