Why Kids Think Names Are Weird (And What Parents & Teachers Can Do About It)
Last month, on the first day of third grade, I was halfway through attendance when I hit the last name on my list. “Nova Reed?” A boy in the back row snort-laughed, crumbs of his morning goldfish flying onto his desk. “That’s a weird name. That’s a space thing, not a person.”
I paused, like I always do now. Nova’s cheeks went pink, and she tucked a strand of dyed blue hair behind her ear, staring at her scuffed sneakers. Ten years ago, I would’ve jumped in right away: “That’s not a nice thing to say, Mason. Let’s be kind.” But that never works. It just makes the kid who called the name weird think the name actually is weird—we’re just not allowed to say it out loud. And it makes the kid with the “weird” name feel like they have something to be embarrassed about.
So I just leaned against my desk and said to Mason, “What’s weird about it? You’ve never met anyone named Nova before, right?” He blinked, then nodded. “Yeah. Never heard it.” I turned back to Nova. “You wanna tell us where it came from?”
That’s how we ended up doing our name story project a week earlier than planned. Nova brought in a crinkled old photo of her grandma, who was an amateur astronomer. She was named Nova because her grandma spotted a new nova the night Nova was born, and the whole family thought it was good luck. By the time she finished talking, three other kids were chattering about their own space-themed cousins and how cool that was. No one thought it was weird anymore.
Over the next two weeks, every kid shared their story. Jagger, whose name gets made fun of on the playground because of the whole jagged knife thing, brought in a faded ticket stub from his parents’ first date: a Rolling Stones concert. Mia, who has one of the most common names in the class, raised her hand halfway through and said, “Everyone always says my name wrong. They say Mee-ah instead of My-ah. Is my name weird too?” Even Leo, whose name is top three every year for boy babies, said his full name is Leonardo and kids tease him for it when his nana calls him that at pickup.
That’s when I stopped wondering if some kids actually just have weird names. The truth is, “weird” doesn’t mean the name itself is bad or wrong. It just means it’s unfamiliar. Elementary-aged kids’ brains are wired to sort everything into patterns: what’s normal, what’s different, what fits into the boxes they’ve made so far. If all the kids they’ve ever met are named Liam, Olivia, Noah, and Emma, any name that doesn’t fit that list gets tossed into the weird box automatically. It’s not usually malice. It’s just developmental. It’s how they learn how the world works.
That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. I’ve had kids tell me they beg their parents to let them change their name because the teasing gets to be too much. But there are small, easy things you can do to take the power out of the “weird name” label, that don’t require big awkward assemblies or heavy talks about bullying.
The first thing is to stop shutting down the comment when it happens. Instead of jumping to scold, pull back the curtain on what “weird” actually means. When a kid says it, ask them to say more: “What feels weird about it?” Nine times out of ten, the answer is “I never heard it before.” That opens the door for the person with the name to share their story, and suddenly that weird new name becomes just a name with a cool backstory. It turns a moment of potential teasing into a moment of connection, instead of letting the “weird” label stick.
The second thing is to always center the kid’s preference, not what’s on the birth certificate or how other people think you should pronounce it. On the first day of every year, I ask every kid to write their name, with how it’s pronounced, on an index card, and tell me if they prefer a nickname. If a kid says I go by Alex not Alexander, I call them Alex. If they say my name is Seamus pronounced Shay-mus not See-mus, I write that down, and I correct anyone who mispronounces it gently, right away. Parents can do this too, when introducing their kid to new teachers, teammates, or friends: just slip the pronunciation in right up front, to cut down on mistakes and teasing before it starts. If your kid says they’d rather go by a nickname at school, honor that too—it’s their name to own, not yours.
Last week, a new kid joined our class mid-year. His name was Peregrine. Before I could even finish saying it, two kids in the front row breathed “whoa, that’s weird.” Before I could say anything, Nova raised her hand from the back. “It’s just a name no one’s heard before, right? Peregrine is a kind of falcon. Wanna hear why your parents named you that?” Peregrine grinned and nodded, and told us his mom is a bird watcher. No one called it weird after that.
It doesn’t always go that smoothly. Some days, a kid still goes home crying because someone teased their name. Some kids prefer a nickname at recess even if they like their full name in class, and that’s okay. What I’ve learned is that weird isn’t a property of a name. It’s just what we call something we haven’t met yet.
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