The first tip here is the most important. Unless you’re a hermit living in isolation, you’ll have to make thousands of introductions to strangers throughout your lifetime—and like death and taxes, personal introductions can’t be avoided. Unfortunately, most of us forget the other person’s name as soon as the introduction is over. Here is how a typical scenario plays out:

1. The other person says to you: “Hi, I’m Sasha”

2. You respond by presenting your own name: “Nice to meet you, Sasha. I’m Philip.”

3. A split-second later, you totally forget Sasha’s name because your mind is too pre-occupied thinking about the next thing you’re going to say to carry the conversation forward, or too focused on listening to Sasha talk. Likewise, Sasha also totally forgets your name.

4. The conversation might proceed for a few minutes, and then by the time you and Sasha part ways, neither of you can remember the other’s name, but you’re both too embarrassed to ask for it again.

The main lesson here is that if you don’t make an active effort to remember someone’s name the first time someone tells you, it can be difficult to find your next chance. You can ask a friend, of course, but it’s better to just remember their name the first time around. Let’s revisit our same introduction scenario again for a better way:

1. The other person says to you: “Hi, I’m Sasha.”

2. As soon as you hear her name, get in the habit of repeating it in your head a few times: Sasha, Sasha, Sasha. If you want to practice saying it out loud a few times, ask about their name. “Sasha, that’s spelled S-A-S-H-A?” or “How do you spell that?” The purpose is just to hear the name a few times to help you to remember. This step should only take a few seconds at most, or it can start feeling awkward.

3. Now introduce yourself: “Nice to meet you, Sasha. I’m Philip.”

4. Unless you have something desperately urgent to say, let Sasha talk, and as you listen to what she has to say, and keep associating what she says with her name. Think creatively about how you can clearly associate that name with her face. If you know someone else with the same name, try to associate that person with Sasha; or if you know some clever mnemonic or memory aid to help you remember her name, then use it, no matter how absurd it might seem.

5. When you finally part ways, mention her name to her. e.g., “Great talking to you, Sasha.” This has the double benefit of making the other person feel good that you remembered their name, and also helps reinforce their name in your head.

With some practice, you’ll notice that you will become much better at remembering people’s names, without appearing at all awkward.

You’ll inevitably meet plenty of people with unfamiliar names or hard-to-pronounce names with respect to your home culture. Some are used to people forgetting or botching their names, so you can make a strong impression if you can accurately recall them.

My main advice here is to (apologetically) ask the other person to repeat and clarify how to pronounce their name. They might be used to having to repeat or clarify their name, so they likely won’t mind, especially when you are meeting them for the first time. Don’t worry about how to accurately spell their name yet, but rather focus on making a phonetic spelling that’s easy to remember. For a name like Chakravarty, you could think to yourself, “CHALK - AHHH - VAR - TY, rhymes with party,” and when you address them by their name again, you can ask for them if you pronounced it right. At the very least, they will appreciate that you are making an effort.

Everyone with an unconventional name probably remembers being teased as a kid in school over their name, and adults mispronouncing their name—even if not maliciously intended—risks you sounding ignorant, xenophobic, and bigoted if you make dismissive or insensitive remarks.

For example, never say things like “Asian names are so hard to remember,” or “That’s a weird name, where’s that from?” This is especially true if you’re a member of the majority group, i.e., a white person in America.

Play it safe by always addressing someone by the exact name they used when introducing themselves. Hearing someone call you by an unsanctioned nickname or variant can be jarring; even worse, it shows disrespect and arrogance on the part of the caller as they modify your own name in front of you. Someone named Robert might not want others calling him Rob or Bob or Bobby-boy, or might have reserved those variants only for use by close friends or family.

It lands even more offensively when the other person has a name that’s foreign to you. For example, if you meet someone named Katsuyami, you choose on your own to shorten it to “Kat.” Call them by the name they used when they introduced themselves, or at least ask.

Once you remember someone’s name, using it in conversation can help you develop better rapport and remember their name even better. Of course, it’s gratuitous and phony-sounding to preface every sentence with mention of a name, but I’ve found that you should at least use names when saying hello and goodbye to enter and exit with a good impression.

Hearing your name mispronounced can be annoying but forgivable, especially if lots of people find your name hard to pronounce, but hearing someone call you by the wrong name altogether can leave the impression that the other person just doesn’t give a damn about you. So, if you’re not 100% certain that you’ve got someone’s name correct, it’s probably better not to address them by it, and instead immediately find your chosen method of re-learning it—like asking a friend or apologetically asking that person to re-introduce themselves.

However, don’t just give up and not make subsequent attempts at learning someone’s name just because you didn’t get it the first time around. Hearing someone call you by the wrong name is horrible, but knowing that someone most likely doesn’t know your name and isn’t willing to learn it is also irritating.

When you’re writing emails or texts, the single most important word to spell correctly is their name. A person sees their name in writing probably more times than any other non-trivial word, so any misspellings will immediately pop out.

In my case, people have misspelled my name as Phillip pretty often, even when my emails show it spelled as Philip, and I can’t help but notice every single time it occurs. A brain-dead-easy way to get someone’s name correct in writing is to simply copy-and-paste it from a previous correspondence they wrote to you. The chances of someone spelling their own name wrong is far less than you spelling it wrong.

You can build even greater rapport with someone if you can remember the names of their significant other, spouse, kids, or parents. That way, instead of sounding generic with something like, “So, how is your wife’s art project going,” you can be more personable with, “how’s Deborah’s art project going?” That one’s a bonus, though, so don’t stress it as much as remembering the person’s own name.

This story was originally published in August 2010 and was updated on June 21, 2021 in slideshow format with additional information and to meet Lifehacker style guidelines.