A method and telephone apparatus which detects when a telephone number has been entered into the telephone and determines if the entered telephone number has previously been stored in the memory of the telephone is provided. If the entered telephone number has not been previously stored, it is then stored into memory. In addition, the telephone automatically initiates a call to a remote computer and transmits the entered telephone number to the remote computer. The computer assigns an alphanumeric identifier to the telephone number and transmits the alphanumeric identifier back to the telephone which stores the alphanumeric identifier in the telephone memory in association with the telephone number. Accordingly, the telephone number can later be recalled and dialed through the use of the alphanumeric identifiers.