5 Tips for Learning Students’ Names

It’s the start of a new school year and you have five classes with 25 students each—125 names to learn. Impossible, right? Wrong. I make it my challenge to learn all my students’ names by the end of the first week. In this article, I offer five strategies to help you do the same.

But first, let’s see why committing students’ names to memory is important.

Taking the time to learn their names shows students that they matter. Have you ever had someone repeatedly get your name wrong? My name is Rae, just three letters, one syllable. Yet, a colleague would always call me Rea. A simple mistake, but it made me feel unnoticed and unvalued.

Show your students that you care by learning their names and pronouncing them correctly. This effort makes students feel seen and valued. If they ask why you’re spending so much time on it, tell them the truth: “I care about you and want to get it right.” This fosters strong, respectful relationships and a sense of belonging in your classroom.

“But,” you say, “I’m hopeless with names.” First of all, start by telling yourself that you’re not hopeless. Like any skill, learning names takes practice and the right strategies. Use making the effort to commit students’ names to memory as an opportunity to model persistence and humility to your students—you’ll likely make some mistakes, and that’s OK. Be explicit about the strategies you’re using; this helps students develop their own memory skills.

5 Strategies to Learn Students’ Names 

1. Make it stick: Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Once you’ve done an icebreaker to introduce everyone’s names, get students working on a task. (You can use the name tent task in strategy three below.) Use the time to walk around the classroom, repeating each student’s name out loud: “Sanjay, Sanjay, Sanjay, Sanjay.” Repeat their name just loud enough for you to hear it, letting the students know that you’re practicing learning their names. Studies show that you are more likely to remember something if you read it out loud. 

Chunking helps: Throughout your first class, whenever students are working independently, practice their names. Perhaps you go to one table group to help answer a question. While you’re there, practice (aloud) the names of each student at that table. Start with one row or table group of four students, and repeat their names until you remember them. Move to the next group, practice those names, and then add the first four to your recall list. Now you’ve got eight!

By the end of class, mix up students’ positions or have them line up by the door, and see how many names you can remember. Remind them not to immediately call out their name if you pause—you may need some wait time. This is a perfect moment to explain to your students the science behind short-term memory recall. Repetition, chunking, and active recall (testing yourself) are all strategies they can apply when learning new material. 

2. Make it fun: Learning names doesn’t have to be a chore—play some games to make it enjoyable. An easy option is name toss. Stand in a circle with your students, using soft objects to toss to each other. Say the person’s name before throwing the object to them. Try to get to everyone in the circle without repeating a name or dropping the object.

Once you’ve done it with one object, make it more challenging by adding a second object, having an object go backward, or going as fast as possible. 

3. Make it visual: A name is easier to remember with a visual cue. Have students create a name tent for their desks, including a drawing of something starting with the same letter as their name. To create a name tent, have students fold a piece of paper lengthwise in three equal parts, using the middle section to write their name. For example, I’d draw raspberries, rabbits, or rainbows next to “RAE.” Then fold the paper to make a 3D triangle that can stand on their desk.

These associations are a powerful way to help remember a student’s name. Next lesson, visualize their name tents to recall their names.

4. Make it meaningful: Turn learning names into an opportunity to deepen your relationships with students and get to know more about them, their families, and their backgrounds. ”The Story of My Name” asks students to talk to their parents or caregivers to learn and share the story behind their name.

Give some prompts to help students, especially those who might not have a parent available to talk to at that moment. Each student should share a two-minute story about their name with the class. Not only will you be more likely to remember their name, but also you’ll foster deeper connections among all members of the class.

5. Say it right: If you teach in a multicultural school, as I do, you’ll encounter unfamiliar names. Learning how to pronounce them correctly shows students that they are worth the effort. My favorite way to learn the phonetic pronunciation of my students’ names is an activity called “My name is... My name is not..., by Ceci Gomez-Galvez. (Here are her curated resources on names and identities.)

With this activity, students use Padlet to record a 10-second video introducing themselves, pronouncing their name slowly and clearly. They can also tell you how not to pronounce their name. For example I might record a video saying something like “My name is Rae—it rhymes with ‘day,’ just like the name ‘Ray Charles.’ My name is not ‘Re-ah’ or ‘Ry.’” Watch these videos as needed to ensure that you get your students’ names right. As a whole school, you can even try recording the pronunciation of student names in your learning management system.

The next time you have a new class, club, or activity, invest the time to learn all your students’ names correctly. It’s an excellent opportunity to model that you are a learner too, willing to try something new and make mistakes along the way. Most important, it shows your students that you care about them.