Associate that student with a famous person, a person you've known, or a fictional person with the same name.
(Bellezza, 1982; Crook, 1992; Hilton, 1986)
The student's peers are good at this. I doubt if there is a child named Dennis in the whole country whose classmates don't call him Dennis the Menace.
Make a rhyme on the student's name. (Hilton, 1986; Montgomery, 1979)
The student's peers are good at this, too. A university student named Maggy told me that her classmates called her names like Baggy Maggy and Mag the Hag.
Associate the student with any occupational surnames. (Hilton, 1986)
Visualize the student functioning as a smith or a tailor.
Make a pun on the student's name.
This is one point which all of the sources agreed on. They disagree mostly on the details. Montgomery (1979) suggests a pun involving actionj, color, and exaggeration. Speaking of memory devices, these three words could be remembered with the word ACE.
Using the student's name, make a pun based on one of that student's physical traits. (Hersey, 1990; Higbee, [1977] 1988; Lorayne, 1975)
I once met a person named Bill who had curly red hair. I remembered his name by imagining a dollar bill stuck in his hair.
If the student has a foreign last name, translate that name into your own language. (Hilton, 1986)
If the name is Morgenstern, imagine the student soaring to earth from a morning star. If the name is Charpentier, imagine the student working as a carpenter.
Associate the student with the literal meaning of the student's given name.
If you don't mind a little extra effort, look up the students' names in a baby name book or a Web site such as
this one.
For mild humor, you could address the students by the English equivalents of their names. In addressing a student named Edward, you could say, "Happy Guardian, what did you put down for number two?" In addressing a student named Doris, you could say, "Shiny Knife, show us how you worked the next problem."
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