How a Former Japanese Record Holder Learned to Remember Faces and Names After 10 Years of Practice

For those meeting me for the first time, hello, my name is Naoya Hirata.

I am good at remembering people's faces and names.
I wasn't naturally good at it; I became good through repeated practice.
To give you an idea of how good I am, I once set a Japanese record by memorizing the faces and names of 41 foreigners I had never seen before in just 5 minutes.
※ I will explain the details of what a "Japanese record" is and why it might seem like Japanese people can't be remembered later.

I think many people struggle with the memory issue of "not being able to remember people's faces and names" in their daily lives or at work.
I don't remember things based on intuition; I learned how to do it through training, so I can teach you the tricks. I have been practicing remembering people's faces and names for 10 years now.
This time, I will introduce the "tricks for remembering faces and names" that I have cultivated over these 10 years.

I have written this in three levels: tricks you can use just by being a little more conscious, methods and practice techniques for those who want to make remembering faces and names a special skill or weapon, and ways to practice with serious intensity. I hope you will read the parts that interest you according to your level of commitment.
The first level contains many commonly cited tips, but I am confident that the second and third levels contain insights that can only be written by someone who practices remembering faces and names daily at a competitive level. I hope this will be helpful to someone.

Self-Introduction and Achievements in Remembering Faces and Names

First, to establish credibility, please let me introduce my brief background and achievements.

I am Naoya Hirata, 28 years old.
Since I was 18, I have been an athlete in "Memory Sports," a mental competition where people compete in memory capacity.
In these memory sports, we compete by memorizing various types of information, and one of the events is "Face and Name Memory."

There are multiple formats depending on the tournament, and although the memorization time and the nationalities of the people to be remembered differ slightly, I have achieved top-level scores in Japan in all formats.

The most standard format is one where you memorize a random set of face photos and names of all nationalities in 5 minutes, and then fill in the answers for the shuffled face photos within a 15-minute response time.
In a 2018 tournament, I set the then-Japanese record of "41 correct answers in 5 minutes" in this format.
It has since been surpassed by another athlete, so it is now the second-best record in history, but I am aiming to break it again.

Also, on memory sports online battle sites like this, there is a game where you memorize sets of faces and names of all nationalities, and I was the first in the world to achieve the level 10 record of "memorizing 13 people in 1 minute." My current personal best is 26 people in 1 minute, which puts me in the world's top 10.

As a bit of a variation, there is also an event where you "memorize a set of Japanese names for face photos of all nationalities," and I have a record of memorizing all 30 people in 39 seconds. This is also a score in the world's top 10.

I can't show you the actual problems, but there used to be an event called "Remembering Japanese Faces and Names" at the "Japan Memory Championship" held in Yamatokoriyama City, Nara Prefecture.
I have participated three times in the past, and I achieved the top score among participants in two of them.

As you can see, I have been able to achieve good results whether remembering foreigners or Japanese people.

Among memory sports events, face and name memory has been said to be the most difficult to practice and likely dependent on innate ability.
However, I don't think so. I believe it is an event that will definitely improve if you practice, and in fact, my scores have continued to improve. In my 10th year of competition, I am at my strongest right now.
By the way, in terms of the amount of practice since the beginning of 2025, I have already memorized about 8,000 people's worth of faces and names in about half a year. This is how much I practice. First, please know the fact that "the ability to remember faces and names is something acquired through practice" and "the more you practice, the more you improve."

Since even at a competitive level it continues to improve, if you just want to use it in daily life, the amount you can remember will definitely increase if you grasp the tricks and practice.
However, there is no secret technique that will instantly skyrocket your memory capacity. Although there are tricks you can use by being a little conscious, their effect is small, and practicing for just a few days will hardly change anything. It is a fact that compared to other types of memory, "the effect relative to practice is small."

Even so, everyone knows too little about the correct way to remember and practice. I have a sense of crisis about this, so I will seriously teach you the "way to remember faces and names" that I have proven over 10 years.
Rather than how to get a good score in memory sports, I will mainly write about tricks focused on practice, such as how to remember in daily life and how to keep it in long-term memory, so please read with peace of mind even if you are not interested in competition.

Tricks you can do right away

First, I will introduce some techniques you can start using today.
Every method here has been practiced by me personally and I have experienced their effectiveness.
Since these are things you can do immediately, some may have a small effect, but they are far better than doing nothing, so please try incorporating the ones you can into your daily life.

Reviewing

You might say, "That's obvious," but it is extremely important.
For us ordinary people who are not superhumans capable of remembering everything in an instant, the only thing we can do is review.

Generally, the strength of a memory is determined by "the intensity of the impression when first learned × the frequency of review." Simply put, it is "quality × quantity." I will introduce many ways to improve quality later, but please also be conscious of increasing the quantity.

I think it is easy to remember the faces and names of friends and colleagues you see every day. One reason for this is the frequency of seeing them often.
It is natural not to be able to remember the names of business partners you have only met once, or the names of new friends you have just met in a new environment. Therefore, we review to increase the quantity. Even if it is impossible to meet every day in reality, it is possible to create a state of meeting every day by reviewing through various means.

First, after introducing yourself or exchanging business cards for the first time, repeat the name in your mind immediately. This counts as one review.
Then, after parting ways, make sure to review at least once within that same day. Recall the name by looking at the business card or directory, and try to visualize their face in your mind as much as you can. If you heard additional information such as their company name or hobbies, try to recall that information as well.
Try to recall it again the next morning. With this, you have "met" them three times.

If you store business cards in a file or manage them with an app, it is a good idea to look at them periodically to review.
If there is someone particularly important you want to remember, keep their business card on your desk so it is always in your line of sight. By doing so, you increase the number of times you encounter them in your daily life and leave a memory.
It is a simple and unglamorous effort, but that is what memory is. Unfortunately, there is no magic to remember things in an instant.

I keep the business cards I receive in a file, and when I add new ones, I make it a habit to look through the past cards as well. When LINE groups are created, I look back at them to review.
Also, if you know when you will meet next, it is good to review the day before. For example, if you have a reunion and are meeting a friend you haven't seen in 10 years, look through the directory, or if you have a business dinner, try to recall everyone who might be coming. Make those kinds of efforts.

Write notes on the back of business cards

This is a trick to create a state where it is easy to review.
Even if it is rude to write on a business card right on the spot, you can write notes on the card after you get home, attach a sticky note, or write notes in the app you use for management.
Those in sales might already be doing this for work, but it is actually very effective.

Even if you think you remembered it that day, you will forget it after a while. What kind of impression you had of that person, what hobbies they had, what kind of conversation you had that day—these become triggers to help you remember.

Leave notes so that your future self can easily review. Memory is an activity of making efforts to make it easier for your future self to recall. If you cannot recall it, it is treated the same as not having remembered it at all. For the sake of your future self, scatter triggers to help you remember.

Imagine a celebrity or acquaintance with the same name

From here on, these are tricks to improve quality.
Rather than just vaguely hearing and repeating a name, it becomes easier to remember if you imagine an image associated with that surname or given name.

Using wordplay to associate is a good method, but what is easy for beginners is to imagine another person you already know with the same surname or name.

It becomes easier to remember if you put "emotion" into the information you want to remember. Instead of just putting information into your head, if you feel it is interesting, strange, or have any kind of emotional movement, it will remain in your memory.
A name is just text information and is not interesting at all, so it is good to replace it with something else you know.

For example, if it is "Sato-san," just imagining the actor Jiro Sato, Shori Sato, or Takeru Sato creates a sense of incongruity like "What is the connection to this person!?" which becomes a trigger to help you remember.
Of course, if you have another Sato you know, you can imagine that person. Anyway, just add some kind of meaning to the name "Sato," which was just a string of characters. That alone increases how easy it is to remember.

By doing this, the next time you meet, the possibility of remembering "Oh, this is the Sato who has the same surname as Jiro Sato!" increases.
(Of course, there is also the problem of not being able to remember that celebrity or which celebrity you linked it to, so I will describe more reliable methods later in the 'Serious Memorization' section.)

Ask about the origin of the name / Make one up

If you have a relationship where you can ask about the origin of their surname or the meaning behind their name, it is effective to do so. This is also a trick in the direction of putting emotion into a name that is just text information.
The brain has a characteristic that things with meaning or reasons are easier to remember. The origin of a name is exactly a "reason." Especially for Japanese people, since kanji are ideograms, it is easy to put some kind of meaning into them, and in many cases, it becomes easier to remember in connection with that meaning.

If a surname is rare, there may actually be some historical background to it, and asking about the origin of a name can leave a deeper impression.
If the person fits the meaning behind the name, it is easy to remember, and conversely, even if there is a gap, that sense of incongruity stimulates emotions, making it easy to remember in the end.

The real essence of this trick is that it doesn't matter if it's a lie. I will explain this in the serious memorization method, but even if the information is fabricated, it is engraved in the brain in the same way.
The names of the people I memorize in memory sports are all fictional, so there is no actual meaning or origin behind them. So, what I do is arbitrarily make up a story for everyone, thinking, 'I guess they were named this for this reason.' Even so, I can remember them properly.
The same applies to real people; even if there is no particular origin or you cannot ask about it, you can just make one up yourself, and that alone will help you keep it in your memory.

Ask about hobbies and hometowns

I mentioned earlier that it is good to increase the triggers for remembering. Hobbies, hometowns, occupations, and club activities can also be triggers.
At first glance, you might think that increasing information makes memorization difficult, but in fact, it is fine to have a lot of supplementary information. Rather, the more information there is, and the more it is connected, the more triggers there are, increasing the likelihood of remembering. You don't have to memorize all the supplementary information, either.

When memorizing people in history studies, it is easier to remember them by grouping peripheral information such as family trees, historical flows, and trivia rather than memorizing portraits and names in a one-to-one correspondence. The more knowledge becomes a network, the stronger the memory becomes.
The same is true for real people. It is better to remember them as a network rather than trying to remember them as a single piece of information. For example, it becomes easier to remember by grouping people from the same company, or by connecting unexpected people through the same hometown.

Have you ever heard of the Baker-Baker paradox?
It is sometimes used in the context of psychology, and it is a phenomenon where, when trying to remember a person, it is easier to remember their occupation than their name. When there is information that Mr. A is a 'baker' and information that Mr. A is a 'person named Baker,' the former is easier to remember than the latter. It is strange, even though the amount of information should be the same.
I think everyone has experienced this. You can remember the occupation, but you can't remember the name. This is somewhat natural, or rather, it's the same for everyone.

Taking advantage of this, let's try to listen to and remember at least peripheral information such as their occupation first. Then, you just need to connect that to their name. Alternatively, you can treat the name as an occupation and force a fabrication. This area is also profound if you want to do it seriously, so I will explain it in detail later.

Use seating positions as a trigger to remember

When remembering people you were in the same class with at work or school, or when remembering people you greeted in a situation where seats are fixed, such as at a dinner or meeting, seating information can be a trigger for remembering.

If you are familiar with memory techniques, you may have heard of the 'method of loci,' but humans can strongly remember memories related to locations.
Even if you are not conscious of it, you usually remember who was sitting next to you.

Using this, it is a trick you can do immediately to remember based on the seating, such as 'that was the person sitting in that seat' or 'who was sitting next to me in class, and who was sitting in front of them.'
There are surprisingly many techniques that use location information, such as getting into the habit of staring at a seating chart, or preparing name tags at seats if you are the organizer of a meeting.

Take an interest

This is about mindset, but take an interest in the person you want to remember. Memory is a function of the brain and is greatly influenced by your mental state. Your state of mind can actually make a significant difference in how easy it is to remember.

The reason you can quickly remember your favorite idols or athletes but cannot remember work-related people is largely due to the presence or absence of interest. If you think that this person is important to you, or that you want to know more about them because you like them, it will naturally leave a strong impression and make it easier to remember.
Even if you have to force it, please try to take an interest. Find their good points and try to like them.

Or, it is fine to dislike them. The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. Since you are free to think whatever you want in your heart, if you find someone unpleasant, hating them thoroughly is actually a trick that makes it easier to remember them.
Ironically, people you dislike are strongly engraved in your brain, and you can remember them. Well, either way is fine, but I think you will be happier if you try to like them if possible.

Have confidence

The last trick is also about your mental state.
Have confidence that you can remember people's faces and names. It doesn't matter if the confidence is groundless. If you tell yourself, 'I can remember, it's okay,' it will actually become easier to remember.

I won't go so far as to say you should have absolute confidence, but at least do not belittle or be pessimistic about your own abilities. Your brain will put up a stopper, and you will truly become unable to remember.

Because of my job, I teach memory techniques to many people, but most people do not have confidence in their memory.
It is not half and half between people who have confidence in their memory and those who do not; in my experience, 90% of people are convinced that 'I have a poor memory.' When you think you have a poor memory, the people around you think so too. So, please rest assured. Do not belittle yourself.

Just by changing that mindset, the amount you can remember will change quite a bit. Let's have confidence.

Serious memorization method: For those who want to make face and name memory a weapon

We are now entering the core of this note.
While some of this is an extension of simple tips you can use immediately, it is fundamentally a method of systematizing how to remember faces and names, and then increasing the accuracy and volume of what you can remember through thorough practice.
If you want to make remembering faces and names a strength or use it to your advantage at work, please put this method into practice and train.

Just as you need to do strength training if you want to build muscle, you need brain training if you want to train your brain. And you shouldn't just do vague brain training; you must do training specialized for the 'part (=ability) you want to train'.
Doing Sudoku or kanji puzzles won't suddenly improve your ability to remember faces and names (though I think it's better than doing nothing). If you want to be able to remember faces and names, learn the method and do training specifically for faces and names. In this part, I will thoroughly explain the practice methods as well.

Why can't we remember faces and names?

Remembering faces and names is difficult. Even in the world of memory sports, it is considered so difficult that people say, 'Faces and names are a different beast.'
The reason it is difficult is that there is no connection between a face and a name.

The human brain has a characteristic where it is easier to remember things that have meaning or a reason. It is easy to remember the plot of a story because the 'meanings' are connected.

There is no connection between a face and a name. You weren't given that surname or name because you were born with that face. Since you are trying to remember the connection between unrelated pieces of information, it is natural that it is difficult.

Also, if it is a name you are hearing for the first time, it takes time to imagine an image from it, making it harder to remember. Especially with foreign names, they can sometimes look like a random string of katakana or characters, which further increases the difficulty. Since a random string of katakana has no 'meaning,' it is also hard to remember.

A method to remember them anyway: Is remembering faces and names the same as remembering English vocabulary?

If it's a naming convention like in a manga character where 'a person wearing glasses is named Mr. Glasses,' there is a connection, so it's easy to remember, right?
By utilizing this, a technique of forcibly creating a connection between a face and a name becomes effective.

It is a strange thing, but whether the connection is true or false, if the impact is strong, it will leave an impression and remain in your memory. By connecting a 'face' and a 'name' that are originally unrelated through a fabricated story, you can make them easier to remember.

Actually, this is a legitimate memory technique. I call it the 'Linking Method' or 'Tagging Method,' but since the essence is 'connecting two meaningless pieces of information to remember them,' it is a technique that can also be used when learning English vocabulary.

There is no connection between the English word 'dog' and the Japanese word for dog (=meaning). That is why English vocabulary is also hard to remember, but by forcibly connecting them, it becomes easier to remember.
For example, when learning the English word 'fertile,' you can remember it by fabricating a story like, 'Polishing tiles with fluffy fur makes the land fertile.'

Applying this same process to faces and names is the basic concept of the serious way to remember. Let's look at the specific method now.

Specific way to remember: 3 steps

1. Think about the visual impression of the person's face or clothing that you want to remember.
2. Associate some image from the person's name you want to remember.
3. Connect the visual impression with the image of the name and imagine a single story.

You will remember the faces and names of people you meet for the first time using these three steps.

For example, let's try to remember this person's face and name.
*By the way, this screen is one of the mini-games in'Kaonamae,' an app dedicated to remembering faces and namesthat I am involved in developing, and it has no relation to any real person.

First is step 1. Let's think about the visual impression of their face or clothing.
- Sharp, dignified eyebrows and eyes
- Gives the impression of a refreshing business person
- The tie is blue
These are some examples. Coming up with 2-3 is enough.
If possible, it is easier to remember if it is a unique feature of that person, but since it is very difficult to pinpoint and verbalize such parts, it is fine to start with the impression you got at first glance.
Also, since the priority is to remember them on the spot, it is fine to use information like hairstyles or clothing that will likely have changed when you meet them again later.

Next is step 2. Associate an image from the name. Puns or wordplay are fine, so convert the 'mere character information' into 'words you know'.
- Usui (from the reading 'usui')
- Mortar and well (from the kanji)
Something like that. If you can come up with one pattern, that is fine.
At this time, be sure to associate words that allow you to imagine an image in your brain. You may also associate 'celebrities or acquaintances with the same name,' which I introduced as a simple tip you can use immediately.

The final step is Step 3. Combine the images created in Steps 1 and 2 into a single story.
For example, if you created an image of "sharp, dignified eyebrows" in Step 1 and "thin" in Step 2, you can connect them to create a story like, "The thickness of the sharp, dignified eyebrows became thin and eventually disappeared."
Alternatively, if you created an image of a "blue necktie" in Step 1 and a "mortar and well" in Step 2, you could create a story like, "I shredded the blue necktie with a mortar and threw it into the well."
The content of the story is up to you, but it is easier to remember if you imagine it as a video rather than thinking in words, and if you think of an exaggerated event with a strong impact.

That concludes the steps for memorization.

When recalling, look at the person's face, remember the story from the impression you formed, and then recall the name.

What impression did you have of this person?
They had sharp eyebrows, right? What story did you create about what happens to them?
They are becoming thin, so you can recall "thin" (usui) and then "Mr. Usui."

I am conscious of these three steps when I memorize faces and names.
Through repeated practice, I discovered that it could be broken down into these three steps, and I used this technique to set a Japanese record. It is the culmination of 10 years of work. Of course, it is possible that a better method will be created, but considering the ease of practice and effectiveness, I believe this is the optimal solution at present.

Although this is a technique that can be used at a competitive level, I believe it is a skill that even beginners can use in their daily lives.
First, it is important to be conscious of these steps when memorizing faces and names. Once you have memorized them this way, you can combine it with the "quick tips" mentioned earlier for review, or write down the "keywords used in Steps 1 and 2" on the back of their business card to help it stick in your long-term memory.

Example

To get into the habit of using the three steps, let's try memorizing a few examples.
Please practice each step yourself and proceed while memorizing.

1. Think about the visual impression of the person you want to remember, such as their face or clothing.
→ Sun-tanned, healthy skin, colorful stole

2. Associate an image with the name of the person you want to remember.
→ A hoe and a rice field, Keisuke Kuwata, Masumi Kuwata

3. Connect the visual impression with the image of the name and imagine a single story.
→ I got a tan while tilling a rice field with a hoe; Keisuke Kuwata is singing using a colorful stole as a microphone.

I think you can make associations like this. I am creating multiple stories as examples now, but it is fine to have just one final story.

Now, can you answer this person's surname?
Recall the story and trace it back to the surname.
Were you able to remember it?

Shall we try remembering one more person?

1. Think about the visual impression of the person you want to remember, such as their face or clothing.
→ Friendly drooping eyes, laughing happily

2. Associate an image with the name of the person you want to remember.
→ A groove (mizo) and a mouth (kuchi), Mizonokuchi (a place name)

3. Connect the visual impression with the image of the name and imagine a single story.
→ When they laughed happily and opened their mouth wide, a groove formed.

You can create any story you like, and exaggerated or strange stories are better because they are more memorable, but be careful not to tell the person directly.
I once had an acquaintance ask me, "What kind of image do you use to remember me?" and I almost blurted out a strange story.

If you have connected the appearance and the name through an exaggerated story, you should be able to recall it successfully.

Let's increase the difficulty a little and move on to an example of memorizing the faces and names of foreigners. Since you are memorizing the connection between a face and a name regardless of whether they are a foreigner, the three steps remain the same.

1. Think about the visual impression of the person you want to remember, such as their face or clothing.
→ Beautiful white hair, reddish-purple rimmed glasses, kind-looking eyes and mouth

2. Associate an image with the name of the person you want to remember.
→ Collar & Ra, Alien + Doraemon

3. Combine the visual impression with the image of the name to create a single story.
→ They turned into an alien when they put on the reddish-purple glasses, so I had Doraemon help them turn back; the beautiful white hair got caught on the collar and the school bag.

It is more difficult to remember foreign names. Instead of just vaguely thinking it is difficult, recognize that it is difficult because the wordplay in step 2 is challenging.

Unlike Japanese surnames, it is rare for a famous person or acquaintance with the same name to immediately come to mind when visualizing names in step 2. Therefore, you need to break down the name into words you know and visualize each one. In this example, it was "Eliandra," so I broke it down into "Eri (collar), and, Ra" or "Alien, Dora" to create the image.

Now, for the final application, let's try a practical problem where you remember a "face, company name, job title, and name" all at once.

This is also taken from an application problem called "Today's Test" on Kao-Namae.

The amount of information to remember has increased, but the steps are the same: visualize the company name and job title and combine them into a story.

1. Think about the visual impression of the person you want to remember, such as their face or clothing.
→ Distinct double eyelids, round face, spiky hair

2. Associate an image with the name of the person you want to remember.
→ Eco-Four: Eco + 4 (Four), Section Chief (Kacho): Goose (Gacho), Yoshikawa: Petting a river while saying "yoshi-yoshi" (there, there).

3. Combine the visual impression with the image of the name to create a single story.
→ The round face changed into the shape of the Earth (the image of eco) and multiplied into four. A goose was running on top of them, and that goose was petting a flowing river while saying "yoshi-yoshi."

Since the amount of information to remember has increased, the story is naturally longer.
If it is a company you do not know, you have no choice but to visualize it yourself just like when remembering foreign names, but if it is a company you know, you can just imagine the products or images associated with that company.

At first, it might be difficult to remember when there is this much information, but as you repeat the practice and get used to it, you will be able to remember this information in under 10 seconds, allowing you to memorize it at the moment of exchanging business cards. Of course, if you do not make use of reviews afterward, it will not remain in your long-term memory, so reviewing is very important.

That is all for the example problem.

By the way, do you remember this person's name?

Try your best to recall it.
What was the visual image, and what was your first impression?
And what kind of story did you create...?

Even if you cannot remember it immediately, it is important to think about it for a while. If you do not repeat this, you cannot train your "recall muscle."

Now, I will show you the answer.

↓
↓
↓

Yes, it was Mr. Usui.

If you couldn't remember, it means your impression of their appearance, the mnemonic for their name, or the story you created was weak.
Analyze where the weakness was and recreate a stronger image.
Repeating this process will improve your memory.

Practice Methods

I believe that when it comes to remembering faces and names, practice can overcome talent.
By all means, repeat the memorization method described above many times, and practice to perform each step faster and more accurately.

Ten years ago, when I started competing, it was quite difficult to practice remembering people's faces and names. I had to create my own problems using talent directories or practice by looking at the websites of local TV stations or city council members to memorize the faces and names of people I was seeing for the first time.
However, memory sports have now become digitized, allowing for free practice, and thanks to generative AI, we can even create our own face photos and names. It is a great era where you can practice as much as you want.

That said, the most recommended practice method is to try to remember as many people around you as possible.
While you can certainly use the practice sites mentioned later, it is more effective to focus on people you are interested in or people who could benefit you if you remember them. It is easier to remember such people, the benefits of actually remembering them are greater, and your motivation will be higher.

If you are a middle or high school student, try to remember more of your classmates and friends than anyone else. If you are a university student, there may be schools where it is difficult to remember everyone in your grade, so try to remember as many students as possible from your large classes.
If you are a working professional, try to remember as many members of your company as possible. Also, make it a habit to remember and review the names of your business partners every time.

Capture a solid impression of their appearance for everyone, visualize their name, job title, or club activities, and create an interesting story. Then, write down the story and images you created in a directory or on business cards and review them periodically.
By repeating this step over and over, the speed and intensity with which you can create these associations when meeting new people will increase.

Now, for those who still lack opportunities for practice, or for those who find it difficult to practice and make it a habit: although it may sound self-serving, please try using the smartphone app I mentioned earlier called "Kaonamae."

Kaonamae is a brain training app dedicated to remembering faces and names.
It is an app developed by MemoAka, the company I run. Although it is currently in beta and has limited features, it provides training that is guaranteed to be effective.

The three steps mentioned earlier each require different abilities. Understanding which ones you are good at and which ones you are weak at is essential for efficient skill improvement. There is no point in only improving what you are already good at, right?

Remembering a face and name is a memory that is only fully formed after clearing all three steps, so it is more effective to improve your weak areas than to focus on your strengths.
Therefore, it is important to first understand what you are weak at and then focus your training on improving those specific abilities.

In Kaonamae, I have named the abilities required for the three steps as follows:

1. Thinking about the impression of the person's appearance, such as their face or clothing.
-> Face Recognition Ability

2. Associating an image with the person's name.
-> Name Association Ability

3. Combining the impression of their appearance with the image of their name to imagine a single story.
-> Image Combination Ability

Training these three skills—Face Recognition, Name Association, and Image Combination—will lead to improvements in your ability to remember faces and names.
After playing a few times, your ability levels will be measured, so play the mini-games that target your weaker areas.

For example, if you lack Face Recognition ability, I recommend the mini-game "Mitakao Dore" (Which Face Did You See?), where you memorize many faces within a time limit. If you lack Name Association ability, I recommend the mini-game "Nakatta Myoji wa" (Which Surname Was Missing?), where you memorize Japanese surnames from a list.

And once you feel you have trained enough and want to do some practical practice, try "Today's Test."
It is a game based on the "business card exchange" example I showed you earlier, and it is a super-practical game where you memorize the "face, company name, job title, and surname" of five people. By doing this regularly, you can test yourself to see how much your ability to remember faces and names has improved.

By repeatedly practicing your weak areas using the Kaonamae mini-games, doing practical training with "Today's Test," and remembering and reviewing everyone you meet in real life to move them into long-term memory, your ability to remember faces and names will definitely improve.

In the first place, most people don't even think about practicing remembering faces and names, and there are very, very few people in the world who practice it continuously, so just doing it is impressive.
If you want to make remembering faces and names a weapon, practice it every day. I am sure it will create a big difference between you and others.

To delve a little deeper and share some tips for practice, in real life, practicing "face recognition" might be difficult.
This is because information like faces and clothing cannot simply be verbalized. For example, when you see someone with double eyelids and label them as "double-lidded," other information is also stored in your brain. Since it is visual information, you are not verbalizing everything completely and storing it in your brain.
If you were only remembering "double-lidded," when you saw someone else and assigned them the "double-lidded" information, it would get mixed up and you wouldn't be able to remember them, right? But in reality, in addition to the "double-lidded" information, you can somehow recall the person's facial information.

I think the sense of how much information you can strip away and verbalize while still having it remain as a memory and being able to distinguish it from others is a skill that you cannot acquire unless your level is quite high. Therefore, at first, don't worry too much about it; try to verbalize your first impressions, and in real life, it is better to be more conscious of "name association" and "image association," which are easier to practice.

As for what to be conscious of in real life, when you hear the name of someone you meet for the first time, try to visualize it as quickly as possible. Also, since company names, job titles, occupations, and club activities are all verbal information, they are easy to visualize, so I think you can efficiently level up your skills by making it a habit to visualize these as much as possible and incorporate them into a story.

How to practice remembering foreigners

I used one person as an example, but remembering foreigners is even more difficult.
It will be even more difficult if you don't interact with them in your daily life. This is because there are fewer patterns for face recognition, and it is harder to come up with puns for name association.

Since image association itself can be used for foreigners without any problems if you train it by remembering Japanese faces and names, what you should be especially conscious of is the "name association" part.

For example, when you read a foreign novel or watch a movie, try to visualize the names of the characters immediately every time. I think that alone will increase the number of times you practice puns.
I don't think there are many opportunities to introduce yourself to foreigners in real life, so let's practice with fictional characters.

Also, it is important to increase your stock of puns. To take it to the extreme, if you had an acquaintance named "Eliandra," you could visualize it in one go, and even if you didn't go that far, if you knew the country of "Andorra," you could visualize it with fewer divisions.
In this way, increasing your knowledge of katakana and foreign countries also leads to an improvement in name association skills.
Increase your opportunities to come into contact with foreign names, such as through overseas sports, Western music, Western movies, or studying world history, and increase your knowledge. If it's a person in a genre you like, you should be able to remember them.
In fact, the world record holder for remembering faces and names in memory sports also said that when they liked sports and cheered for athletes around the world, their stock of names increased and it became easier to remember them.

When remembering foreigners, it is effective to use an online memory sports practice site called Memory League.

There is a mini-game called "International Names" in it, and by setting it to Japanese, you can practice remembering foreigners in katakana. You can play it 3 times a day for free, so please practice regularly.
There are level-ups and world rankings are reflected, so I think you can enjoy it like a game.

Self-introduction to get yourself remembered

I will end this chapter by talking from a different perspective.
Knowing the tips for remembering other people's faces and names means that, conversely, you also know how to get others to remember you.

Ordinary people probably don't know the 3 steps and I don't think they are consciously trying to remember, so the point is to "deliver information to the other party in a state where it is unconsciously visualized."

What is effective is to introduce yourself in a state where your name is visualized. It is fine to introduce the origin of your surname or given name, and it is also good to give hints for visualization together, such as saying "I have the same name as the celebrity so-and-so."
For example, my name is Hirata, but I say things like "Please remember me as Hirata, who opened a new door to memory" (it might be quite cheesy if I think about it now), or my first name is Naoya, and I convey hints for visualization by saying "It's Naoya, meaning honest and manly" to explain the origin.
If you have a color in your surname or given name, if you wear an item of that color on your clothes or around you, and you tell them that, they will remember you quite strongly.
If you do it too much, it might not be appropriate for the situation, so please use it according to the TPO.

That is the method for seriously remembering faces and names that I have devised over 10 years.
From here on, the content is aimed at those who are aiming for the next stage. Please read it if you are interested.

Super Advanced Edition: For those aiming for the top level in Japan in face and name memory

For those who want to be able to use face and name memory not just as a weapon but at a competitive level, I will share practice methods and ingenuity you can use.

The way to remember doesn't change. You just have to perform the aforementioned 3 steps at high speed and with high accuracy, but there are several parts that can be speeded up through prior effort. Let's do that.
Of course, an overwhelming amount of effort is necessary, so please play Kaonamae or Memory League every day to increase the number of trials.

Memorize the top 100 surname rankings and visualize them all

First, here is how to train your ability to remember Japanese faces and names.
Since it is difficult to measure the results of face recognition, we will train that using face-name associations, while name association and image combination skills require a significant amount of prior practice.
Image combination skills can be improved dramatically by training the 'Story Method,' so please practice memory techniques separately.

What sets you apart from your rivals is 'name association ability.' Simply practicing specific memory techniques is not enough; you can save a significant amount of time by creating patterns for individual names.

While it is realistically impossible to pre-visualize every name that exists in the world, it is possible to visualize frequently occurring names and character strings. Furthermore, by doing so, you will increasingly be able to combine existing patterns to quickly improvise images even for names you see for the first time.

If you want to improve your memory for Japanese people, starting by creating patterns for surnames is effective.

Using this site as a reference, please create images for all of the top 100 most common Japanese surnames.
And if possible, use memory techniques like the Method of Loci to memorize them in order.

I won't explain the Method of Loci in detail as it is outside the scope of this note, but I have explained it in a video in the past, so I will link it here.

For example, you can think of images for surnames like:
・Sato → Sugar
・Suzuki → Ichiro (the baseball player)
・Takahashi → A bridge (hashi) in a high place
・Tanaka → Tanaka from the comedy duo Ungirls
・Ito → Thread (ito)

You can think of these images in advance. A point of caution here is not to make all of them famous people or acquaintances.
If there are too many people, it becomes quite difficult because you have to distinguish between them. I think it is best to keep them to half or less.

It is said that the total population of people with the top 100 Japanese surnames is about 40 million, which is about 32% of Japan's total population.
In other words, one in three people you meet in daily life will have a surname you have already visualized, meaning you can associate their name instantly.

If you are a bit more ambitious and memorize up to the top 200, you can cover about 43% of the population.
When I was competing in the Japan Memory Championship, I memorized all of the top 200 and had pre-visualized them. Thanks to that, I was able to achieve a top score.

By memorizing the entire ranking, even if you can't recall a surname immediately, the chances of remembering it by going through the list from number one increase significantly. You probably won't have that kind of time in real life, but it is effective in competitions.

Assigning images to first names in advance

Using the same logic as surnames, it is faster if you also assign images to first names to some extent in advance. This also assumes you are memorizing Japanese names.

However, rather than memorizing first names by ranking, I recommend assigning images to frequently used 'kanji' characters.
The reasons are that rankings change significantly depending on the era, and names often share commonly used kanji.

For example, in the 2024 baby name ranking for boys, there are many names with the character 'Yo' (陽) like 'Haruto' or 'Asahi,' and many with the character 'Sae' (颯) like 'Hayate' or 'Soma'.
Looking at these, it is good practice to create images for frequently occurring kanji like 'Yo' or 'Sae'.

And although it is a bit irregular, let's use the 'Names' category on Memory League to check if the name images you have learned are effective.

Since faces from all over the world are lined up, you might feel uncomfortable connecting them at first, but you will get used to it quickly. Once you get used to it, it becomes excellent practice for improving your name association and image combination skills.
Just like with International Names, there are levels and a world ranking, so please keep practicing and raising your rank.

You can become the best in the world by pre-visualizing foreign names as well

Japanese names are familiar, and since you only have to deal with Japanese names, it is easy to prepare for them.
However, that is not enough if you are aiming for the world top. You should prepare for name patterns from all countries.

Because this requires a vast range and depth, even among memory sports athletes, almost no one prepares for it. If you do what everyone else is unwilling to do, your relative ranking will rise. If you are serious about aiming for the world top, you should do it.

There is no point in doing it blindly, so I think in the end, you just have to steadily increase your knowledge.
The method introduced in 'How to Memorize Seriously' of 'memorizing foreign athletes and characters' is a good approach, and 'stocking names that appeared in Memory League's International Names and visualizing them one by one' is also good.
In any case, increase the amount of exposure, repeat the visualization, and increase your improvisation skills and knowledge.

This article is from the blog of a world-class competitor.
They put in extraordinary effort, writing down names and listening to them to commit them to memory. You cannot reach the world's top level without doing this much.

Also, deepening your understanding of people's names helps with visualization.

I studied by reading this book.

There are many such approaches, and top competitors are currently experimenting with trial and error. Once you reach this point, you are a true 'face and name memory enthusiast.' It is a fun and profound world.

Conclusion

So far, I have introduced how to remember faces and names at three levels.
In particular, the second method of serious memorization and the third, super-advanced version, contain the insights I gained from 10 years of continuous practice in remembering faces and names, so the volume has become quite large. Thank you for reading.

Finally, I would like to talk about whether there is even a need to remember people's faces and names in this day and age.

I cannot predict the future perfectly, and while lifestyles, culture, and values will change significantly, I believe that even in this day and age—and perhaps precisely because of this age—being able to remember people's faces and names remains important.

Just as there is no longer a need to go out of your way to memorize phone numbers, you can store information about faces and names externally as much as you like if you devise ways to manage it. There will undoubtedly be an era where there is no need to keep people's faces and names in your own brain. It might already be happening.
Precisely because we live in an era where there is no need to remember, the act of remembering becomes an expression of intent, saying, 'I am interested in/fond of you.' I believe this helps build better relationships in both private and professional life.

Unless we live in a world where wearing AR glasses instantly displays the names of people we pass by, there are many situations where it is surprisingly difficult to look them up quickly. If you can recall a name immediately when you happen to run into someone on the street or at work, the other person will be happy. I believe there is a high possibility that the accumulation of such moments of happiness will be evaluated as personal character, leading to better relationships and better work.

Also, beyond these practical aspects, improving or maintaining your ability to remember faces and names leads to confidence in your own abilities. I think this is quite important in terms of mindset.
When people repeatedly fail to recall faces and names, they feel down. They may feel sad, sensing their own lack of ability or their aging. Even if a device solves it for them, it is not thanks to them. It is thanks to someone else's technology.

If you can remember faces and names on your own without relying on tools, you can have confidence in your own brain and abilities. It becomes a successful experience. For children, it might have a major impact on character formation, and for seniors, it might help prevent dementia. For anyone, I think it makes their days a little brighter.
It doesn't have to be faces and names. I think it is mentally beneficial to have the realization that your skills are improving, no matter what they are. Since the default state for almost everyone is 'lacking confidence' in faces and names, it might be easier to feel the effects, even though it requires a certain amount of practice.

That is why I believe that in any era, there is no loss in training this ability. At the very least, I am sincerely glad that I continued to practice.

I would be very happy if this article helps someone.
Everyone, let's train our memory for faces and names!