It happens when the name sounds foreign — you try and remember by association.

Shortly before meeting the Russian-origin director, Ilya Naishuller, and repeatedly forgetting his name, I just told myself: Ilya, as in ‘Elia’ from Jaun Elia, the Pakistani poet, who was ‘Nice’, and a ‘Chiller’! 

Said together, Ilya Naishuller would come back to me.