Mastering Names and Building Networks

It is easy to catch the attention of a stranger just by mentioning their name. And, for some reason, there is an inexplicable charm to hearing one's name spoken by another person. Harnessing such a remarkable ability to captivate another person's attention through their name holds some secrets to building good relationships.

Dale Carnegie, an interpersonal relationship expert, elaborates in his book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, on how a person's name is the sweetest thing to them in any language. And, although the title may make you cringe when holding out the book in public, it teaches secrets to winning the hearts of people and developing and maintaining healthy relationships with them. One of those secrets is mastering and effectively speaking the names of people when communicating with them.

I set out to apply the principles to the new people I met during the three weeks I spent at the NYSC Orientation Camp at Rivers State—where I was deployed to receive orientation for my one year of national service to my fatherland—and I experienced such rapid growth in networking with people of diverse languages and tribes different from mine.

"I am sorry that I am bad at names. Please, remind me what yours is," is a common statement people make every now and then. There are variations, of course, but they generally imply that one didn't quite pay much attention or put in sufficient effort to learn and memorise the names of the new people that they only recently met. I belong in this category of people.

Although forgetting the names of people is harmless most of the time, it may get to the point where it appears rude when such statements like the one given earlier become incessant.

Being able to accurately mention a person's name to them after being told recently does a lot more to open the floor and facilitate the beginning of a connection with the individual in question. I managed to do this for most of my time at the NYSC camp, and I'll say that I got myself known to a lot more people than I would have if I kept "forgetting their names."

At some point, one individual said to me, "Guy, you get sharp memory oh. Wetin be your name again sef?" Implying that he was surprised that I kept remembering his name without failure since he told me and that the least he could do in return was to do the same—memorising mine, Olujay.

"I no go forget am next time," were the words he continued with after I reminded him of my name. It meant that he'd try harder to remember me and my name.

Just like that is how I developed something between many people and got them to remember me and my name, simply because I always tried to tell them the sweetest thing to their ears every time we met, their names.

Of course, I am only human, and I am bound to make mistakes. I mixed up the names of people a few times, especially when it was uncommon to find two people bearing the same name, considering the diversity of tribes we all came from. One can imagine the plethora of names to memorise and associate with faces.

In cases where I would make mistakes with names, however, I would politely ask for a reminder and then, often, never another afterwards.

Three weeks was way too short to build relationships with a lot of people, but getting connected with them through their contacts and cementing my name and personality in their hearts—just as I did the same—was worth more than gold to me.

After experiencing just how useful mastering and effectively speaking the names of people to them can be in building networks, I try to make it a regular thing to do and imbibe to get myself out there more often. Who nose 🐽 what beautiful relationships I could form with amazing people?