On your first day of work in a foreign primary school, your (highly irritated and hardly English-speaking) head teacher asks you to come up with """American""" names for her adorable 5-6 year old students, who are clearly far too afraid / confused by their teacher to report their real names when she asks. This teacher, who hasn't actually been exposed to much American / English culture since her classes presumably in the '90s, has her own idea of what """American""" names sound like: white sitcom names. You have to, in a flash, try to come up with """American""" names for these deserving, good children that are authentic to their age but which also appeal to the bleached tastes of the teacher, who is terrifying them and clearly impatient. Plus, they have to be easy to spell, because she's going to make these kids, who barely know how to hold a pencil, write their own name plates.
Welcome to my reality.
I'm really quite, quite ashamed of the names that these kids may very well carry through the rest of their English-learning career - or even beyond.
Now, mind you, I'm not totally opposed to taking a name from the language you're learning. My first term of French, our instructor directed us to an online database of baby names in France and had us pick from the most popular names from our year of birth. That way, we had some say, some time to prepare, and got a name that was both French and contemporary to our age. We're still in contact, and she still calls me by my chosen French name, which makes it really funny that I have a student named Océane.
This is not what occurred with my poor students.
Bless their hearts.
I'm crippled with guilt! The consequences of my inadequate selection could follow them through the rest of their educational careers - AND BEYOND.
At least I didn't allow any of them to be called Kevin ...
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