What's In A Name?

Happy new year; when do you start the 2024-25 school year?

And more importantly, which books will you use as you work with intention to bond your students to one another and to you? I'm so excited to see Birdie & Mipps join these strong #SEL titles.

I'm also jazzed to have found this Sesame Street clip on Facebook this summer because it perfectly complements our theme, that names are important because they help make us ... US. In the clip, Rosita struggles with whether or not to tell her coach that her name is Rosita, not Rosie. It was a difficult decision, especially for someone so small, to advocate for a preferred name, but it's critical to foster a compassionate understanding and caring connection.

I'm right there with you, Rosita, and I'm proud of you for stepping out of your comfort zone into courageous advocacy. My given name is Barbara, but for the first third of my life, people around me in WI called me Barb. It just sounds friendlier, I suppose, and a bit less formal, but when I got to Texas and people started referring to me as Barbara, I realized that it's the name I prefer. A barb, after all, felt sharp and prickly, like the barb on a barbed wire. I know, I know, sounds trite even as I type, but that's just how Barb lands for me, unless you grew up calling me that.

Still, I find myself tongue tied when I introduce myself as Barbara and someone replies with, "Nice to meet you, Barb." Wait, what? Where did the last three letters of my name go? I typically let it go along with those letters, but I'm trying to be more honest about it, so that I don't end up feeling like Rosita in this scene.

So that's one of the reasons I felt it important to write a book about names in general, focusing on nicknames in particular. That, and I wanted to share the story of how Mipps got his nickname.

Another reason I thought this an important topic is Tiger.

It was long before Tiger Woods came along, of course, but since my student's given name was the same as his father's first name, from birth on, his family just called him Tiger. That's how we all knew him. In town. At the ball diamond. At church. It's what made him ... him! But when he got to school, a by-the-book teacher said that he wasn't an animal and she would be calling him by his given name. How confusing for him, I thought to myself quietly, to be known by his father's name at school when everywhere else he was Tiger. Why couldn't his friends call him Tiger? Didn't his teacher know?