alt Hacker NewsHah. 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.
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A trick I learned is to picture their name written across their forehead (visualize each letter). It works pretty well.
As someone with very similar issues with names, how did you start remembering names?
I wish the protocol was to introduce your name about 5-15 minutes into the conversation because then I would have some other information to attach it to. When it's the first piece of information I receive I think my brain just doesn't really know where to put it and it gets lost immediately. The "use their name several times in the first conversation" trick is a good workaround for this.