1. The practice of casually mentioning important people in order to impress your listener
   "the hard thing about name-dropping is to avoid being too obvious about it"

1. Refer to people that one assumes one's interlocutors admire in order to try to impress them
   "He constantly name-dropped celebrities at the party"

Derived forms: name-droppings

Type of: advert [rare], bring up, cite, mention, name, refer, reference

Encyclopedia: Name-dropping