Students, educators reflect on the irksome nature of names.
Names.
Could the topic get any broader? That solitary expression knowingly covers so much of the English language it would be hard to pinpoint one true word to describe the term. Even name has a name: the word itself!
However, probably the first thing that comes to one’s mind when hearing the word “name” is something along the line of Sarah, Jacob, Madison, Daniel… the list goes on. Actually, the list would most likely go on for miles and miles, being that everyone out of the 6,525,170,264 worldwide population has a name unique to each and everyone one of us.
But as innocent as names may seem, they can often be the basis for stereotyping and frusteration...
Names say a lot about us and may sometimes reveal much about who we are as individuals. Often times names may give a hint to ethnic or cultural background; some distinctly sounding, for example, Arabic, Asian, or even just English. But occasionally, do students tend to automatically classify each other by perhaps the sound of their names before meeting or seeing one another in person?
“I think people in general would do that,” said Libby Loser (whose name is pronounced with a long “o”), a guidance counselor at York Catholic High School, on the topic of whether or not pupils form preconceived images of each other. “I would imagine students would do that as well.”
On the same topic, Sara Pfeiffenberger of the English department at York Catholic also gave her opinion. “Here in a Catholic school, I don’t think stereotyping is as big of an issue, but whatever your background is can definitely be an issue if you have a group populated by a certain type of people, and there’s someone new (introduced to the group).”
Along the same line, many people reading this article could put an assumed face to names such as Amjad, Lanying, Antoinette and even John. These images may be based on the sound of the name or even a personal connection with the title; perhaps a friend or family member also bares the same name.
Allison Elliott, a freshman at YC, also agrees to forming preconceived images of others. “I think everyone does it; I mean if I hear a name that might sound like it’s from a different country… I might picture someone from that country.”
Aside from stereotypes, names can get frustrating for many other reasons. New variations of older or more common names are popping up all over the world each and every day. Though most alternate spellings are not as well known, even the name Sarah has over 58 variant forms according to thinkbabynames.com!
But as a whole, many students have already encountered the dreaded misspellings or mispronunciations of their names. Some may be more difficult to deal with, while others may just be nuisances.
“It does annoy me,” said Allison on the occasional misspellings of her name, “but I can’t blame the people because there are so many different spellings of Allie and Elliott.”
Pfeiffenberger has also learned to overlook the minor complications that come with the mispronunciation of her last name. “It happens so often that it doesn’t bother me for the most part, especially if I’m meeting someone for the first time.”
However, many students can testify that it is especially hard at school when a teacher misspells, mispronounces or just completely forgets their names all together. “A lot of times when I was younger they’d have Elliott spelled wrong on documents and it would get kind of annoying,” Allison said.
But what is it like from an administrator's point of view, having to memorize and place faces to hundreds of student’s names? “I work very hard at (memorizing names) with my ninth graders… I’m all the time going to the yearbook and looking up faces,” laughed Loser.
An effort is always made on Pfeiffenberger’s part too. “At the very beginning of the year its hard (to memorize names) when you first meet students,” she agreed, “but I think seeing their names over and over definitely helps, as well as calling on them in class.”
But despite the frustrations names can cause, Pfeiffenberger is intrigued. Simply putting it all in perspective may prove to be the name of the game.
“I think I’m also just interested in other people’s names,” said Pfeiffenberger, who now allows her class to simply call her “Miss P”. “I’m also interested to see the background (of the students’ different names).”
This is a really creative article, I and I think that many people can relate to it. For example, I definitely have to agree that it is annoying when people misspell or mispronounce your name. I have had a chorus director for the past three years who still pronounces "Chae" with a Ch sound rather than an Sh sound. I've also gotten pronounciations such as "Chase," "Chai," and most recently, "Chloe." As if having an uncommon first name isn't bad enough, my middle name is spelled "Maree" but pronounced like "Marie".