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"
Verb: namedrop (namedropped,namedropping)
Refer to people that one assumes one's interlocutors admire in order to try to impress them
Derived forms: name-droppings
Type of: advert, bring up, cite, mention, name, refer, reference