Tricks for remembering student names?

I feel your pain as I am terrible with names. I can recall minute details about the individuals I've taught (including their family members) some years after having them as students, but not their names. I share this fact about my recall with students so that they are fully aware my failure to recall their name does not mean I am failing to make an effort to know them as individuals.

The schools I've been associated require both the students and the faculty to wear lab coats and name pins during nursing labs. I've found this to be extremely helpful as I do get to remember their names (as least during the time I have them as students) in short order. I've tried the other tricks such as associating the first letter of their name with some obivious characteristic about them, but in my case it doesn't help.

Hopefully others will share their tips.

I've found name tags helpful - constantly looking at the name tag and associating it with the face has always helped me.

In my nursing school, I once had a professor who, on the first day, took digital pics of each of us, writing our names in order. She said she "took them home and studied". And, she knew almost all of our names! Don't know if this is an option for you, but I thought it was a great idea!

In my classroom the instructor told us to take a seat and to keep that same seat for the whole semester. That way she could remember us and not get confused if we changed seats. Then she would pass a sheet of paper around with a drawing of our seating arrangements, and each one of us would fill in our name on the drawing. The instructor would then keep that sheet of paper with her every time we met, and she can easily see our names by looking at it.