The perfect candidate applied for the open position at our company, but I lost his application! I’ve looked through a list of names of people who have emailed me recently to try and find him, but none of the names on the list rings a bell = kommt mir bekannt vor
Some believe that the origin of this idiom is the experiments carried out by Pavlov where he struck a bell every time he fed a group of dogs. The dogs learnt to associate the sound of the bell with food. After a while, at the mere sound of the bell, they responded by drooling.
Others say it is simply because bells are often used to remind us of things, from a school bell to the egg timer in your kitchen.