What Is in a Name?

As a teacher, I encounter quite a variety of names from year to year.  I have been teaching professionally for 11 years. If you estimate 17 students per year, that totals 187 children.  Basically,  I have learned lots of children’s names.  I find it interesting how the names change from city to city and neighborhood to neighborhood. 

My student teaching took place in a small Michigan school near the Ohio border.  The school had a predominately White American population with student names such as Caiden, Jackson, Nicole and Ashley.

Next, I moved on to more urban schools with predominantly African American populations.  I had typical names such as Eric and Jasmine.  However I also had names such as Mehki, Messiah, Omunique, and Alantiaja.

I moved to Raleigh, North Carolina in 2009. Raleigh has a very diverse population.  The names of my students reflected the diversity of their backgrounds.  I had Y’Benny of Vietnamese heritage.  The Y in his name is silent.  I taught male cousins Rishaab and Paarth of Indian heritage.  I have taught 2 little girls named Zainab. Both girls had families from different North African countries.  In this city, I also usually had a large population of Hispanic children in my class including the names Jesus, Josue, Yamilet, and Hilda. 

It seems that there are at least 20 different names that begin with "Abdul" here.  You just have to listen closely to learn the ending.  

Now I live in Kuwait.  I must admit that I scratched my head in nervousness the first time I saw my class list.  How do you pronounce that?  It turns out that standard grammar rules apply with most of my student’s names here.  There are a few vowel sounds that are just different here.  In the states, it seems that some parents seem to strive for individuality in naming their children.  That does not seem to be the case here.  In our school’s carpool line, you will notice multiple children look up when you hear “Muhammad, Abdulaziz, Sheihka, Abdulrahman.”  These names are quite common in Kuwait.   If I had to take a guess, I think there has been at least one “Sarah” at every school I’ve worked in.  It is pronounced a bit differently here than in the states. 

Learning names is truly an adjustment in different places. Unless it is a name that is familiar to me, I cannot always determine the gender of a person when I see their name in print.  Sometimes I get an email from a parent of my student, and I don’t know if it came from a mom or dad.  One helpful hint is that Kuwaiti women do not take the name of their husbands.  If the parent shares the name of the child, it may be safe the assume that it is a father.  If they sign their email with first name only, I’m a bit confused. 

Dear Mr,  umm Dear Mrs, umm Dear Sheihka's parent :)

I have one student in my class of Indonesian heritage.  His mother recently told me that a majority of Indonesians do not share a family name.  This intrigues me greatly.  This boy comes from a family of 5 and no one in his household shares the same last name.  How do you identify families?  How do you decide which 3 names to pick for your child?  I might have scared the mom away if I truly asked her all the questions that came ot mind that day. 

Names are very interesting reflections of communities.  I can look back on my career and appreciate the diversity of my students.  Although learning the names of my students and their parents is a task I'd rather have a variety than a bunch of the same year end and year out.