Learn how to say people’s names right, especially the hard ones. It tells them they’re worth the effort.

A name said properly is a small act of attention that everybody notices and almost nobody mentions. Getting it wrong and never correcting it sends the message that learning it was not worth your time, which is exactly how it gets received. The effort is tiny and the result is remembered for years.

Ask once, directly, then repeat it back until you have it. Write it down the way it sounds, as you would for a word in a language class. Use it in your next sentence to them, and keep using it rather than drifting toward some nickname you invented.