Student Names

I've been watching You Tube a lot recently, and I started thinking about how people came up with their user names. Which then led me to thinking about student names.

As an English teacher in South Korea, I've come across some interesting 'English' names. And I put English in quotes, because I don't mean that the name itself is English or American, but just that the student uses an English word. Most of these names fall into one of these categories:

1. Food
Spaghetti
Banana

2. Famous People or Characters
Jack and Sparrow (the boy who sat next to Jack)
Conan (the Barbarian)
Kant (Emmanuel Kant?)
Bart Simpson
Pikachu
Pinocchio
Bella
Harry Potter
Voldermort

3. Random English Words
Subway (a girl)
Sniper (a girl)
Bam! (complete with the exclamation point)
Chris Look
Sky
Bloom
Felino

These are only the ones from my school. I know there are countless other kids across Korea with wacky names.

What would make a kid want to be called some of these names? I asked the kid named Spaghetti his reasoning behind this. It's like if I called myself Donkasu (Korean for fried pork cutlet). He later changed his name back to Sparrow (yes, that kid).

Some of it is from the previous teacher, though. There is a fellow teacher who once had a bunch of new students in his class. He said he was going to give them names from Star Wars. He didn't, but a couple of terms later he named the kid Conan. There was another teacher I worked with who didn't like putting last name initials or numbers by the students with the same name, so the students became Jenny Orange, Jenny Yellow, etc. after their favorite color.

Most of these students are younger or beginning speakers when they come in without an English name, or the name is a carry-over from their first time in English class. But we do have quite a few fluent or near fluent students (reading USA high school level books) who insist on strange names. This includes Banana and Subway.

I myself have only named a few students. Usually I pick out a list of 5 names that look like they would fit the student, and then they choose the final name. I try to pick names that are relatively simple (beginning English learners have trouble spelling their own name) but not just the regular David or Jenny. I've named a Violet, Kelly, and a Michael, though the Michael kid was when I first started and I didn't want to go too original on the names.

Interestingly, though, Korean kids with long names don't like to have them shortened. Michael did not like being called Mike and Andrew never answered to Andy, just to name a few.

It makes me wonder if they'll keep their English names when they become adults, especially if they need to continue using an English name. I've had students who've changed their names several times. Thinking back to my name in Spanish class (Raquel), I would definitely change Spanish names given the chance.