C66: What's in a Name?

​As we focus on learning environment design and building learning relationships, we must first consider a simple practice that bonds a community together.  Pronouncing the names of our learners correctly. 

What’s in a name?  It’s the first gift your parent’s give you when you are born.  It shapes your identity, reminds you of your family heritage, and is a lasting legacy that you matter on this planet.  

As we begin this new school year in the Northern Hemisphere, let us be mindful of the power of a name.  When we engage with our learners, let’s take care in learning each and individual name, because it represents someone’s identity.  

As we begin this new school year in the Northern Hemisphere, let us be mindful of the power of a name.  When we engage with our learners, let’s take care in learning each and individual name, because it represents someone’s identity.  

• Don’t go the easy route and mispronounce it, because it’s easier for you.  Our students must see multiple teachers in a week.  Imagine having to be told your name incorrectly during each of those encounters.  It’s exhausting.  As a child, I had a teacher and classmates call me Louisiana, because they couldn’t say my name correctly.  Imagine how you’d feel being named after a state and hearing other students chuckling behind your back? 

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• Don’t shorten it, so it’s easier for you.  There are so many resources to pronounce names and one is called YouTube.  In this day and age, we shouldn’t have too many issues practicing our learner’s names.  We take it slow.  We apologize, but eventually, we get it right. 

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• Don’t give them a nickname. Unless a child requests a nickname, don’t give them one.  They have probably been given one in the past to make it easier for the teacher’s to pronounce their name.  They are just being kind, but it doesn’t make it right. 

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• Don’t give them a Western sounding name.  This is probably the greatest insult we can give a child, because we are saying their name doesn’t sound correct, because it’s not “normal”.  This is a problem, because it can have lasting effects as the child grows older. 

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​Why is this so important to me?  I didn’t realize until I was an adult that both my parents mispronounced my name.  I was named after two women: Louisa Montoya and Anna Norris.  Louisa was a latina who through the progression of events had her name changed to add an o in order to sound more Caucasian.  This would be the first nor last time that immigrants tried to blend into their new surroundings by changing the spelling and sound of their names. 

As a result, my parents pronounced my name incorrectly.  My name is really Luisa.  My mother would always say my name with emphasis on the end going up.  I always thought it was weird as a child.  Why did she always sound like she was shouting when she said my name? 

My dad pronounces my name based on phonetic spelling.  Because I have the Causaian spelling, he pronounces the s with a zzz sound.  This is how you would pronounce the name of the famous author Louisa May Alcott’s name.  Very British and very posh.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m the ultimate Anglophile, so I should love it. 

My whole life, I felt my name didn’t suit me.  It didn’t represent my personality.  

This all came to a head when I moved to Cologne, Germany.  I worked in a dual language, inter-religious campus.  This was the beginning of my PYP journey.  One thing I noticed is that my German colleagues followed the British pronunciation using a ZZZ sound.  At one point, I couldn’t handle hearing my name being said, because it sounded like nails going down a chalkboard.  

Surprisingly, this all lifted at the same time when I engaged with my Spanish colleagues.  Their pronunciation of my name was light, happy, and so was I.  I felt for the first time that people saw me for who I was.  I was livelier around them, because they too were a ray of sunshine.  

When I left Germany, I decided to change my name from Louisa to Lu.  It reflected a shortened version of the Spanish spelling and was more Asian too.  I thought to myself, it can’t be so hard to spell and say my name with just two letters.  

Now, I’m battling people who spell my name Lou (like I really look like a dude) versus Lu.  Haha...you can never win!

I didn’t come to all of this realization about how my name impacted my life until a couple months ago.  It hasn’t changed who I was on the inside, but it has shaped a lot of my interactions with others. 

As we build relationships with our learners, let’s take the time to get to know their unique personalities, which all begins with their name.