the ultimate name game: Everyone is someone else.

“What was your name again?” is a question your hear all the time, especially during a training or at a meeting. The ultimate name game plays with this idea. The ultimate name game is, like the activities described above, a good way to get acquainted.

This activity promotes
    • acquaintance
    • contact
    • energy
    • fun
    • many more

Required material
     • name tags (to pin or put down and a marker)

Game sequence / instruction

You will see during trainings or seminars that after registration, you will receive a name tag that you can pin on your shirt. This also happens in training rooms in the form of a folded card on the table.
With this method you give each participant a card that is not his/her own. It is then the first task of that person to find and hand over the name card owner.

How you organize it exactly is up to you. Examples: you consciously pin the wrong card on arrival at the participant (or you let someone of your team do this) and tell them that they will soon be told why they did not receive their own card.
Or allow the participants to enter the room and they will find a ticket in their seat. But you ask them to pin it and then find the owner. Extra assignment: Let them discover why they have just received a card that belongs to somebody else (search for community).

Making Connections

Mark Collard is the founder and director of playmeo and he has written many books on the subject of icebreakers.

He started playmeo as an innovative online platform to share fun and valuable group games. Besides having a website and many books on his name, he now also has a youtube channel. It is called Mark Collard and it gives a helpful guide on how to facilitate a great group activity. The channel also give a few examples of great teambuilding activities.

In this video he explains and shows a fun exercise you can do with a group of people that don’t know each other yet.

201 Icebreakers : Group Mixers, Warm-Ups, Energizers, and Playful Activities.

By Edie West

Content

201 Icebreakers is great for trainers, speakers and group facilitators. The book contains many activities that cost little time and preparation. Most activities can be done in less than five minutes. This makes it perfect at the beginning of a meeting to break the ice, or in the middle to get everyone excited and going again. With the games, quizzes, energizers, and brainteasers, this book has to offer. You will have a great atmosphere in no time!