Debate rages on the morality of giving your kids English names. Some teachers argue that it’s degrading and patriarchal to impose English names on Korean students. Others think it’s fun, and no worse than being called Jacqueline in French class. Some schools insist on it. Some don’t care. Some kids already have English names given them by another teacher. Some kids simply deserve to be re-named Crap or Lackwit.
Giving your kids English names when they’ve already got perfectly good Korean ones may very well be degrading and patriarchal, but when you have Sae-yoon, Song-hyun, Sung-min, So-min, Song-hee, Sung-yon, Sung-ho, Song-ho and Min-su running around jumping on tables and sticking crayons up their noses, you’re going to wish you had something to scream that you can get a handle on.
A selection pulled from Dave’s:
“I once had a young guy named Peter who one day changed his name to Catherine. Couldn’t tell me why, and neither myself nor the Korean teacher translating that it was a girl’s name could convince him otherwise.”
“I’ve had many: Ice, Rain and Snow, Hikki, Genius (he failed), Diety, Mermaid, Rainbow, Dandelion, Eleven, Becareful, Zero, Zorro, Blue Storm, Green Horse and Golden Dawn. I’m still waiting for Golden Shower and Yellow Snow.”
“I had girls called Icecream, Shakespeare, Shinichi, Juice, Chocolate.”
“Hippo, Glory and LT6R. All adult men.”
“He decided Hamburger Cheese suited him well.”
“Telecomunications man, Ton, Hellboy, Potato killer, Cool, Blue, Iceman, Dumb (and his friend Dumber), Ice-T.”
“I had a class where the boys were called Breanne, Donna, Bess, etc and the girls were named Frank, Phil, Bob, George.”
“Sweet, Sweetie, Billy Psycho, Baby, Yellow, Bang Bang, Orifice, Stone Cold, Latifah, Rambo, Dark, Penalty Kick, Great, Jackal, ET, Ding, Rabbit, Star, Top, Terminator, H.O.T (a boy band), Little Italy, Gandalf, Pro, Chandler, Mint, Spanky, Dream On, Bear, Elbow, Chicken Guy, Airheart, Ramses, Dr. No, Lose (Rose), Risa (Lisa), Pooh, Ever, Vladistain, Fart, Mango.”
“I enjoyed teaching Mirror Princess, Smile, Adolf, Money, Bomb, Kaka, Wahaha, Automan, Mike Bibby, Hot Sauce, Aruba, Frog Mouse, Mr. Perfect, Harry Potter, Super Computer, Fishwood, Shumacher and Luberchun.”
Despite the temptation to name your students Ross, Chandler, Joey, Rachel, Monica, Phoebe and Marcel, or Omar, Shariff, Latisha, LaToya, Jamal and Jaleel, remember some of these names stick for life and the kids are going to have many more foreign teachers after you.
All the more reason to christen the kid Thunder Tom Dragon and give the next teacher a giggle.
