Not sure if this is due to the fact that Japanese language only has 46 basic sounds.
One top example is kimasu and ikimasu. Also I know a couple people named Manami (I got confused with minami) and Iwama (confused with imawa)
If you have tips/tricks on how to overcome them, please do share. Thanks a lot!
Edit: I wasn't referring to homophones. The words don't necessarily sound the same, they usually contain the same syllables but in reverse order (I-wa-ma and I-ma-wa) or just a slight variation (like ki-masu and i-ki-masu etc.). I don't know if there's a linguistic term for such a thing. Thanks for all the inputs so far!
by cadublin