Do Kids Actually Have ‘Weird’ Names? What I’ve Learned As An Elementary Teacher
I click my clipboard closed halfway through third grade roll call last fall, squinting at the name I just stumbled over. “Xayvion? Is that right?” A small boy in a neon dinosaur hoodie waves from the back row. “Yep. That’s me. Most people mess it up.” Before I can apologize, a girl two seats over leans over and stage-whispers loud enough for half the room to hear: “That’s a weird name.”
I pause, and Xayvion just shrugs and pulls out a pack of sparkly crayons, like he’s heard this a hundred times before. I finish roll call, but I notice he doesn’t raise his hand once the rest of the morning, even when I ask a question about prehistoric predators I know he’d want to answer. After dismissal, his mom waits by the door to talk, and she confirms what I suspected. “We get that all the time,” she says, leaning against the cinder block wall. His great-grandpa was Xavior, a Creole fur trapper who settled in Louisiana back in the 1920s. They changed the spelling to match how their family has always pronounced it, to honor that side of their heritage. “I knew people would comment, but it’s his name. It’s supposed to mean something, not just be easy for strangers to say.”
I thought about my own niece, Wren, right then. My sister picked that name 10 years ago, and at every family reunion for the first five years, someone would pull her aside and say “Wren? That’s such a weird name. Why didn’t you just name her Lauren?” It got so bad my sister stopped bringing her to the annual Fourth of July picnic for a couple years. I’ve been teaching 12 years now, and I’ve had every name you can think of: Blue, Zy’aire, Rowan, Miracle, even one kid named Banjo whose dad was a bluegrass musician. Every year, at least one new name gets labeled weird by the kids, and sometimes by other adults. So the question I’ve been asking for a while is: are they actually weird, or is that just what we call anything that doesn’t fit what we’re used to?
After that first day with Xayvion, I adjusted my usual first week morning meeting activity. Instead of just sharing our favorite snacks, I had everyone share where their name came from. The girl who’d called Xayvion’s name weird was named Madison. She went first, and said her mom picked it because it was the number one baby name the year she was born. Then she added, “My grandma said when she was my age, Madison was a weird name for a girl. She thought it was just a street in New York.” That got a laugh, and it opened the door. Xayvion went last, and told the whole class about his great-grandpa, and why his parents spelled his name the way they did. By the end, a couple other kids shared that their parents changed the spelling of their name too, to make it unique, or to match their culture. No one called anyone’s name weird the rest of the week.
That moment made it click for me. “Weird” when it comes to names is almost always just familiarity bias. When I was a kid in the 90s, anyone named Miles or Luna got called weird. Now those are two of the top 10 baby names every year. My grandma told me that when my aunt was named Jennifer in 1942, everyone thought that was a weird, made-up name. Now it’s so common we barely think about it. What we’re really saying when we call a kid’s name weird is that it doesn’t match the names we grew up with, or the names that are popular in our own cultural group. That says more about us than it does about the name.
People always ask me what to do as a teacher or parent when this comes up, and I don’t have some big fancy solution, just a few small things that work. First, if you mispronounce a name, just correct it quickly, don’t make a big production out of it. You don’t have to say “wow this is such a hard name” just “thank you for telling me, let me try again”. Making a big deal out of it just draws more attention to the difference and makes the kid self-conscious. Second, if your kid is the one who says another kid’s name is weird, don’t just shut them down and say “that’s not nice”. Shaming them for noticing a difference just makes them think difference is bad. Instead, say “That makes sense, it’s different from the names you know. Wanna hear why that name is special to them?” It turns a throwaway comment into a quick learning moment, and it doesn’t make anyone feel bad. Third, never give a kid a nickname just because you don’t want to bother learning their real name. I always ask: “Would you mind if I called you X for short, or do you prefer I use your full name?” If they say yes, great. If they say no, you use their full name. That’s their right.
For parents who have kids with names that get called weird all the time, one small thing I tell them is to model how to respond when people comment, instead of getting defensive or brushing it off in front of your kid. If a stranger says “that’s such an unusual name”, you can just smile and say “We love it, it’s named after my grandpa” and leave it at that. You don’t have to argue with anyone, but modeling that you’re proud of the name teaches your kid to be proud of it too.
Last month, Xayvion came to school with a new backpack that had his name ironed on the front in big sparkly red letters. He showed it to me before class, and said “Now everyone can read it right”. There’s still a substitute every once in a while who mispronounces it, or a new kid who says it’s weird under their breath. That’s not going to stop, I don’t think. People are always going to think new things are weird. But what’s changed is how Xayvion responds now. He just leans in, smiles, and says “It’s Xayvion. It’s my great-grandpa’s name. Let me spell it for you.” That’s all you can really ask for, I think. We don’t have to make every name fit the same box. We just have to make sure every kid feels like their name, whatever it is, is welcome in the room.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » Do Kids Actually Have ‘Weird’ Names