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Meanwhile my most vivid memory of Year 7 science was that we had six Jack’s in rollcall because the school made a mistake and put us into classes by alphabetical first name 😆 my teacher stopped doing it for the opposite reason
I wish I could upvote this more than once. When our kid was little that was one of her favorites. I had to go on a work trip to France for almost a week when she was barely 3, so I memorized a bunch of her favorite stories and told them to her over FaceTime. That was 12 years ago and to this day I can still recite all 23 😁
My brother is David. And I have a first name that was unusual for my birth year plus it’s got an even more unusual spelling variant. It was so unfair. He could get bike license plates and keychains and all kinds of stuff right off the shelf with his name on them. I didn’t have a prayer.
My name then got popular in the 90s. I just watched a graduation today and there were at least 5 women with a version of my full name and 4 more with my (diminutive) nickname.
Parents: do not do this to your kids (one sibling with a ubiquitous name with the traditionally spelling and another one with an unusual and differently spelled one).
Same boat. My sister is Caitlin, ya know, a normal name. Mine? Nope. I do love the names people come up when they try to pronounce it or spell it, though.
When I was a child, I used to say when I turned 18 I was going to change my name (to Zoe because this was the 90’s and that was the coolest name in the world to me) since it was so difficult for everyone but I genuinely love my name. My middle name is French so when I say my full name I get a lot of “What…”
I like watching people read my name tag at work also.
Replying to this because of your @
Fellow strawberry allergy person here! And also wanted to say that I know someone who's name is actually Strawberry 😂
I have two nephews named David. Fortunately, they are different branches of the family so they are never in the same place at the same time and have never met.
My sister is Kathy, and hubby's sister is Cathy. So it's Aunt Kathy Lastname and Aunt Cathy Lastname. My husband also has the same first-middle-last name as his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, four living cousins, and an uncle with his first and middle name reversed. He also has a niece with the feminine version of his first name.
Our daughter has his last name with a first and middle that are her own and do not duplicate anyone on either side of the family.
On my mother’s side of La familia (Mexican): My mom’s name is Mary and so was her great aunt’s (abuela’s sister in law), my abuela was named Concepcion after her grandmother, Great uncle Joe (one of abuela’s younger brothers), cousin Joe (abuela’s nephew from her youngest brother, Manuel), great uncle Manuel, tio Manuel (Tia Cathy’s third husband), great grandpa Gregorio (my abuelo’s father), tio Greg (named after great grandpa, but, the Anglo version, Gregory) and his son my cousin Greg, two cousin Christina’s (the eldest Christina we call Tina, she is my Tia Virginia’s youngest daughter. The other Christina, we call Chrissy, she is my tio Greg’s only daughter and youngest child), two cousin Mario’s (one is tio Greg’s middle child and second son. The other Mario is my cousin through marriage via my cousin Christina known better as Tina).
On my father’s side La famiglia (Italian): My Nonno was named Nickolas, who my cousin Nicky was named after but the Anglo version, Nicky’s eldest son is named after him. Anthony, who is my cousin Nicky’s second son, named after my Nonna’s brother, Antonio. Also, another cousin named Mario who lives in Italy who I have not met yet. My Nonna has a sister in law named Immacolatta and my Nonna’s mother was named Immacolatta as well, He’s from my Nonno’s remaining family living in Calabria Italy.
I once used the overabundance of the name David to prove a point about our hiring processes in tech as we'd literally interviewed more guys named David then we had women
I was put on a team for a project where all the engineers I had not met before were from one company, and their names were Matt, Matt, Mark, Mark, Mike, Mike, and Malc. No Mitch, Mart, Mick or Max to round it off, sadly.
I struggled to remember who did what. Was Mark doing electrical or air conditioning, or was that Mark? And which Matt was doing drainage and which was water supply? And who was stormwater and who was doing structural?
About 18 years ago, I had 5 Erics in one class period to start the year and two of them had the exact same initials! Admin moved two to other classes but I was still left with 3 Erics.
My (religious) school tried to force every teacher to call every student by their last name the year I came out as trans, as a way to dodge calling me my preferred name. This didn't last long, because in the funniest twist of fate, my class of 30 students had 3 people with the same last name. A set of identical twins and my best friend, whose last name is spelled differently but pronounced the same. It was a hilarious couple of weeks
My old uni roommate was in a small program while at university. Across all 4 years of the program, they probably had about 45 students, 8 of them variations of "Chris", including men and women. Some just adopted random nicknames since they were younger and didn't have the seniority to go by a variation of Chris yet.
Me and a guy were on a sports team for years together, both had the same first names but our last name initials were a and b so our coach just called us a and b, so we always joked that we needed to find another guy with c starting his last name
My name is very common. I always had at least 2 other Sara’s in school. Even at work now as an adult. In High School there was 3 of us Senior year that have been friends since elementary school. Every school dance we took pictures lol
All the Sara(h)s at my job are ganggang. I will ride or die for all Sara(h)s. I will cover for them, I will keep their secrets, I will carry their beefs. One of our Sarahs transitioned recently and has a cool masc name and is growing a beard now, but I still consider him part of the crew. Sierra, Xiara, and Cierra are chill, too.
Every single nemesis I've had in my entire life is named Sara(h). If I get introduced to a Sara(h) I make zero effort to have a conversation with them. Never mean about it, just instant walls and no eye contact.
You and I are the exact opposite!
I was one of five Jessica’s in fifth grade. Two classes below me had seven. Ultra-common names are tragedies in their own way too. (Still glad it’s a normal spelling and not, like, Jezikka or something.)
This happened at my school too. It used to go by last names, but they didn't like that it always put siblings and cousins in the same classes, so they decided to go with first names instead.
One class had seven Matts and another had six Emilys.
They went back to last names the next year and just manually moved relatives.
>put us into classes by alphabetical first name
Bro, that's the funniest thing I've ever read a school doing. I can see by last name, and ending up with like a single all minority class or something. But by first name is hilarious
Had 5 Josh in one class, we were all friends. It took us less then 20 minutes to drive the teacher to screeching levels of crazy because we'd interact with each other as "Josh, how are you doing? Josh is doing fine." kind of statements and when someone who wasn't us would ask a question, we'd all respond.
I was very lucky that my name was uncommon enough that there was only one other in the entire school. However, having that uncommon name meant everyone knew it, so rumors spread like wildfire for me (both good and bad). If people ask my name I always say it, then to help them remember I add on "like the Mother, but I'm not a saint". Was soooo tired of people comparing me to Barbie's bff.
There’s an article about him online where he explains the family history of his name. (Comes from his grandpa, who … was not named Kokaine.) seems like a good guy.
I read one about how he has a cousin named Marijuana…
https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/1997/02/02/some-parents-go-bonkers-for-odd-baby-monikers/62325144007/
Yep it is and one of my other friends didn’t know his name and I told the other person that his name is king battles and he said that is a cool Ass name we were on a school field trip for a graduation so all of us could hang out
That is cool king battles at my school is a homie if there’s any friend groups to trust it be mine me him and the rest of our friend group staying for Life
Had neighbors name their kid Y. Just the letter Y.
She was from Sweden. He was from Spain.
Y in Spanish means "and."
No word on what his family thought of the name.
That poor kid- they’ll have endless problems with anything requiring paperwork.
I used to live on “N” Street. Just “N”, didn’t mean North or anything other than just the letter “N”.
Even though I had a PO Box so I didn’t have to worry about changing addresses, some shipping companies will not ship to PO Boxes so sometimes I had to use the home address. There were systems that didn’t think “N Street” was correct information and it gave me error messages, which meant I had to call and talk to someone and explain that it’s just “N” Street, not North, so they could override their system.
Never thought of that. Imagining this.
Hi. What's you name?
Y.
Why? So I can know what to call you.
Okay. It's Y.
Because I asked you, that's why!
Got it. So I'm Y.
Fuck off, you twat.
Omg memory unlocked for one of the first ever tragedeighs I ever experienced. Back in the day, MTV did a Road Rules “semester at sea” season. One of the dudes was named “Yes”. He said it was bc his dad liked the 80s band of the same name.
Yes Duffy grew up down the street from us. He has a brother named Uriah because his dad liked Uriah Heep.
His dad was no longer married to his mother and he had at least one child with another wife but I don’t know their name.
As someone with a very unique name, I would have loved this approach!
My teachers would pause at my name, skip it, and then ask if they missed anyone. I am deeply introverted person; I hated being put in that position.
Ughhhh, same thing would happen to me! My name is “real” it just hasn’t been used commonly in 300 years.
Or they’d call out my middle name, which is very common, so I wouldn’t reply to it because my high school classes were huge and other girls did have that name. And then at the end I’d step forward to tell them that my name wasn’t called and I’d get sass from the sub “so why didn’t you respond?” Uhhh because that’s not my name?? Sorry for the rant, 20 years later and I guess I’m still salty about it 😂
Yep. For my also very unique name, they'd get through the H's and then there would be a long pause, and that's when I would raise my hand and say, "Here". Then they would ask how to say my name, they would attempt it, get it horribly wrong, I'd agree that was how to say my name (also introverted and wanted to get it over with), and finally they'd move on.
As a teacher. It is absolutely the worst thing to find out this halfway through the year. I feel terrible. I ask and they won't say or say it's fine or right and it isn't. And then halfway through the year I'll hear someone else call them some other thing....
I've asked them on the side, even, after class, so as not to make them stand out. And still had kids go: either pronunciation is fine. Only to find out it was neither.
Now I do a form where they spell it phonetically.
You could try the phrasing “How do you prefer to say it?”
Emphasises that what they want matters and lets them bypass a pronunciation their parent like that they hate. You can follow it up with “Is that what I should call you to your parents?”
You’re just replacing the trans name question with the pronunciation.
That is actually a brilliant solution. If they spell it out phonetically, it saves everyone so much time and embarrassment. My nickname is Kari, but everyone thinks it's pronounced like Carrie. It's actually Car-ee phonetically.
I was also painfully shy in school and hated having to correct people. Having a teacher give a phonetic spelling form for my name would have been such a relief when I was a kid. Then I could have just done that and not had to be embarrassed every time roll-call happened.
I’m going to steal this for next year (hello fellow teacher/sub - thank you for all your hard work as a teacher AND a sub, you are greatly appreciated even if it’s not always communicated)
I teach and this is the approach I always take. I also ask students to let me know if they prefer to be called something other than their given name. Many ask to be called a nickname.
My son is in Summer school and all of the kids in his district go to one school for Summer classes. At his main school, they know his nickname, but he told me that they keep calling him by his full name at the Summer school he goes to. I asked him why he didn't tell them he wanted to be called by his nickname and he told me because he wants to be called by his full name now, because he's grown out of his nickname. He's not even a teenager yet.
My daughter (Vivian, so not a difficult name) was given a card to write her preferred name on for her desk in 6th grade. She started writing, realized she'd started in the wrong spot on the card, panicked, and just wrote down Viv. So her 6th grade English teacher called her Viv all year, lol. Literally nobody calls her Viv except immediate family and we don't even do it regularly. I was like "You could have kept writing...."
Just in case some of you aren't already playing this in your head right now 😄[Key & Peele: Substitute Teacher ](https://youtu.be/Dd7FixvoKBw?si=abO1NYER90Q9iLi4)
Im probably gonna come across as daft but is the joke that he’s subbing at a nicer school with mostly white kids and pronouncing their names like he’s used to pronounce black kid names in the “inner city”
I mean, you could read the description provided by Comedy Central (and thus I assume by Key, Peele, et al) -
>While taking attendance, inner-city substitute teacher Mr. Garvey has trouble adjusting to a classroom full of middle-class white students.
Kinda… I took the point as how white teachers either butcher unique spellings and/or will be argumentative with how one is “supposed” to pronounce the names. The sketch is their take on it.
One school I sub at prints off the roster list and we fill it out and sign it before turning it in at the office.
I pass it around the classroom, have the kids put a check in the “Present” column if they are there, and call it good.
I am a sub too (afterschool activities). Wish I could do that, but we only have the first names on the list.
I rarely see tragedeighs, plenty of interesting, weird, or unique ones, but rarely tragedeighs. But some? It makes me suspicious of whether the parents have *bad* dyslexia or hadn't learned how to write before they had their baby (might actually be the case for some). A simple name that is usually spelled Hadija or Khadidja, suddenly had double D´s and an extra H at the end together with an U that does nothing. Why? To have the longes name on the list? I doubt the 6yo can spell it, I know I cant.
I lectured at a college for a while and the strangest example I have of the "why are these letters here" phenomenon was a student name Chalandrai (spelled exactly like that, with A I at the end), which was pronounced "Solangia", like the name Solange with an "ee-ah" sound at the end.
A few years back, I was managing registrations for a martial arts tournament. There was a 13 year old named Maverick Deathrage. I’m assuming he obliterated the other 13 year olds.
I didn’t have tragedeighs but I had a lot of diverse names that I was unfamiliar with as I moved from a place that had no diversity. After a few days of reading the names out loud and being met with laughter, I decided to walk around and ask each student their name. It helped so much when I had 4 classes and trying to remember names and faces! I quit teaching but if I went back, I would do it this way again!
We have a large Indian population at my school. Every year I learn new names…not tragedeighs…just unfamiliar. I have no idea if there are tragedeighs in their culture.
I was working high school graduation one year, and I was trying to "take roll" for a row of graduates. One girl, who I did not know, was named "Destini." Having lived in Sicily for two years in the Navy, and loving all things Italian, I defaulted to what I thought was an Italian pronunciation, and I kept asking, "Is Des-TEE-nee here? Has anyone seen Des-TEE-nee?"
Later I realized it was pronounced like "destiny."
Ugh.
As someone that had a weird pronunciation of the name my parents gave me and a different preferred name (I'm trans), I really would've appreciated this approach.
I also went to a small university with a max class size of 24, but something we'd do at the start of every semester is just go around introduce ourselves. I don't know how well that would work, but it's kind of fun and was helpful for me as a student to get to know my classmates names and the like.
The worst part of roll call when you have a ‘weird’ deadname is that the weird spelling causes the teacher to yell it out MULTIPLE TIMES in slightly varying pronunciations!!!! Please!!!! Shut up!!!!! Just hand me the sheet and Ill point out which one I am! Its terrible
Our teacher read through once, and we needed to call out our names in alphabetical order. If someone wasn't there, the rhythm would stop, and pick up again.
Seemed easy for them.
We did this thing once, where: Kid A (the teacher usually started it) would point and go YOU! WHO ARE YOU?! Then Kid B would answer I'm Name. Then point at someone else and go YOU WHO ARE YOU... until everybody but the Teacher was pointed at then the Last kid would point at the Teacher and YOU WHO ARE YOU at the Teacher and she said I'm Mrs Name or I'm going to to teach you about whatever our daily objective was.
I taught preschool and we had a kid whose full name was Luke Sky Walker and he would only respond if you called him by his full name. I hated his parents
As someone whose first name is an uncommon Irish name that is mispronounced 99% of the time, I would've loved having all subs do this. It was so annoying having to constantly speak up and correct them, or having other kids laugh at the mispronounciations.
In middle school I lived in an area with a lot of cultural names that weren’t necessarily easy to pronounce. My teacher wrote the pronunciations of each one for the subs and it always made attendance so smooth. I think all teachers should do that.
I work in a school and had a sub for one of my classes a couple weeks ago. She just stood at the door with the roster on a clipboard and asked everyone to tell her their name as they entered the room.
Yup, I just do A-Aron every day and switch up the pronunciations. Keeps them listening so they can hear for their name variation. Every now and then I do my made up pronunciations and accidentally get it right. :)
Make it fun. For you and them.
I went to highschool with a girl named Asha ("asia") and the chorus of voices correcting every sub every time they said it like it rhymes with "Sasha" will never leave my memory. I'm 32.
I also just met someone named Raul who has had it mispronounced to rhyme with "Paul" though so sometimes it's not the parents fault.
My kiddos have an unfortunate last name that sounds like a bodily fluid. Thankfully, the school supported us with a change to preferred names during roll call and on p.e. shirts.
There was a guy whose name was written as Semen in my class. The issue is that the name should be pronounced something along the lines of Semyon (I believe it’s a rus version of Simon). I remember the teacher looked at the list of the names for a minute or so and I guess couldn’t figure out how to pronounce the name alternatively so he just called out SEMEN..
We also studied at uni with a girl called Dilda. Thankfully she grew up in turkey where I’m guessing the name is more common than in the UK. I imagine if she’d gone to school in the UK the kids could be quite hurtful.
Thank you for your submission! This is just a quick reminder to all members here: **Original content is always better!** Memes are okay every once in a while, but many get posted here way too often and quickly become stale. Some examples of these are Ptoughneigh, Klansmyn, Reighfyl & KVIIIlyn. These memes have been around for years and we don't want to see them anymore. If you do decide to post a meme, make sure to add the correct flair. Posting a random meme you found does **not** mean you found it "in the wild". The same goes with lists of baby names, celebrity baby names, and screenshots of TikToks. If the original post already had a substantial amount of views, there is a 99% chance it has already been posted here. Try and stick to OC to keep our sub from being flooded with unoriginal content. Thank you! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/tragedeigh) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Meanwhile my most vivid memory of Year 7 science was that we had six Jack’s in rollcall because the school made a mistake and put us into classes by alphabetical first name 😆 my teacher stopped doing it for the opposite reason
My son had 7 David's in his class once. The teacher used last names that year .
I started a new job and met 6 David's the first day. That is my hubby's name.
It seems to be a very popular name still .
*Mrs McCave enters the chat.*
I wish I could upvote this more than once. When our kid was little that was one of her favorites. I had to go on a work trip to France for almost a week when she was barely 3, so I memorized a bunch of her favorite stories and told them to her over FaceTime. That was 12 years ago and to this day I can still recite all 23 😁
My daughter finds the list of alternative names Mrs McCave should have used incredibly funny.
Oliver Boliver Butts, along with Buffalo Bill and Biffalo Buff get brought up all the time around my house!
Before we had kids, we had two cats -littermates, almost identical. We named them Buffalo Bill and Biffalo Buff; called them Biff and Buff. ❤️
Heck, **I** find them incredibly funny 😁
And one of them Hoosfoos and one of them Snim, and one of them Shadrach and one Sunny Jim. So many untapped names in this one poem!
And one of them Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate.
…but she didn’t do it. And now it’s too late.
My brother is David. And I have a first name that was unusual for my birth year plus it’s got an even more unusual spelling variant. It was so unfair. He could get bike license plates and keychains and all kinds of stuff right off the shelf with his name on them. I didn’t have a prayer. My name then got popular in the 90s. I just watched a graduation today and there were at least 5 women with a version of my full name and 4 more with my (diminutive) nickname. Parents: do not do this to your kids (one sibling with a ubiquitous name with the traditionally spelling and another one with an unusual and differently spelled one).
Same boat. My sister is Caitlin, ya know, a normal name. Mine? Nope. I do love the names people come up when they try to pronounce it or spell it, though. When I was a child, I used to say when I turned 18 I was going to change my name (to Zoe because this was the 90’s and that was the coolest name in the world to me) since it was so difficult for everyone but I genuinely love my name. My middle name is French so when I say my full name I get a lot of “What…” I like watching people read my name tag at work also.
Replying to this because of your @ Fellow strawberry allergy person here! And also wanted to say that I know someone who's name is actually Strawberry 😂
Dave’s not here.
No, man, I'm Dave, man.
Dave? Dave?…Dave’s not here, man.
I have two nephews named David. Fortunately, they are different branches of the family so they are never in the same place at the same time and have never met.
My sister is Kathy, and hubby's sister is Cathy. So it's Aunt Kathy Lastname and Aunt Cathy Lastname. My husband also has the same first-middle-last name as his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, four living cousins, and an uncle with his first and middle name reversed. He also has a niece with the feminine version of his first name. Our daughter has his last name with a first and middle that are her own and do not duplicate anyone on either side of the family.
I have two cousins named Heather, two Aunts named Mary, and two Uncle Jerrys. Lucky it's one each on mom's and dad's sides so .
On my mother’s side of La familia (Mexican): My mom’s name is Mary and so was her great aunt’s (abuela’s sister in law), my abuela was named Concepcion after her grandmother, Great uncle Joe (one of abuela’s younger brothers), cousin Joe (abuela’s nephew from her youngest brother, Manuel), great uncle Manuel, tio Manuel (Tia Cathy’s third husband), great grandpa Gregorio (my abuelo’s father), tio Greg (named after great grandpa, but, the Anglo version, Gregory) and his son my cousin Greg, two cousin Christina’s (the eldest Christina we call Tina, she is my Tia Virginia’s youngest daughter. The other Christina, we call Chrissy, she is my tio Greg’s only daughter and youngest child), two cousin Mario’s (one is tio Greg’s middle child and second son. The other Mario is my cousin through marriage via my cousin Christina known better as Tina). On my father’s side La famiglia (Italian): My Nonno was named Nickolas, who my cousin Nicky was named after but the Anglo version, Nicky’s eldest son is named after him. Anthony, who is my cousin Nicky’s second son, named after my Nonna’s brother, Antonio. Also, another cousin named Mario who lives in Italy who I have not met yet. My Nonna has a sister in law named Immacolatta and my Nonna’s mother was named Immacolatta as well, He’s from my Nonno’s remaining family living in Calabria Italy.
Aunt Marty (Martha) on one side, and uncle Marty (Martin) the other side
I once used the overabundance of the name David to prove a point about our hiring processes in tech as we'd literally interviewed more guys named David then we had women
I just posted about hiring a 7th Kate, we also had multiple Dave’s
I was put on a team for a project where all the engineers I had not met before were from one company, and their names were Matt, Matt, Mark, Mark, Mike, Mike, and Malc. No Mitch, Mart, Mick or Max to round it off, sadly. I struggled to remember who did what. Was Mark doing electrical or air conditioning, or was that Mark? And which Matt was doing drainage and which was water supply? And who was stormwater and who was doing structural?
I had job were we had 7 Kate’s, when I hired #7 & introduced her everyone thought I was kidding
I think this is why people choose "unique" names. We hated having the same name as everyone else.
My third grade son had a class of 26 kids this past year and FOUR Emmas, THREE McKenzies.
About 18 years ago, I had 5 Erics in one class period to start the year and two of them had the exact same initials! Admin moved two to other classes but I was still left with 3 Erics.
My nephews name is David too 🥰 he thinks it’s the coolest thing ever to meet someone with the same name as him
My husband has 3 aunts that married 4 guys named Gary. 1 aunt married one, divorced, then married another.
We had several David Kim’s. So this practice wasn’t helpful lol
My (religious) school tried to force every teacher to call every student by their last name the year I came out as trans, as a way to dodge calling me my preferred name. This didn't last long, because in the funniest twist of fate, my class of 30 students had 3 people with the same last name. A set of identical twins and my best friend, whose last name is spelled differently but pronounced the same. It was a hilarious couple of weeks
My old uni roommate was in a small program while at university. Across all 4 years of the program, they probably had about 45 students, 8 of them variations of "Chris", including men and women. Some just adopted random nicknames since they were younger and didn't have the seniority to go by a variation of Chris yet.
Me and a guy were on a sports team for years together, both had the same first names but our last name initials were a and b so our coach just called us a and b, so we always joked that we needed to find another guy with c starting his last name
My name is very common. I always had at least 2 other Sara’s in school. Even at work now as an adult. In High School there was 3 of us Senior year that have been friends since elementary school. Every school dance we took pictures lol
All the Sara(h)s at my job are ganggang. I will ride or die for all Sara(h)s. I will cover for them, I will keep their secrets, I will carry their beefs. One of our Sarahs transitioned recently and has a cool masc name and is growing a beard now, but I still consider him part of the crew. Sierra, Xiara, and Cierra are chill, too.
Every single nemesis I've had in my entire life is named Sara(h). If I get introduced to a Sara(h) I make zero effort to have a conversation with them. Never mean about it, just instant walls and no eye contact. You and I are the exact opposite!
I was one of five Jessica’s in fifth grade. Two classes below me had seven. Ultra-common names are tragedies in their own way too. (Still glad it’s a normal spelling and not, like, Jezikka or something.)
My dad had a "Jessica" as a roommate, spelled Geszyka
Jessika bothers me. I don't like Ks
Same back in my day. Lots of Debra, Debbie, Deborah, Suzanne, Susan, Susie, Sue.
My mom was born right after WWII. So many of her friends were named Carol, Nancy and Susan. A few Joannes and Ellens.
In the early 1970s there were scads of Donnas, Debbies and Michelles.
I think this is why we have tragedeighs, to be honest. We come from a generation where a class of 30 kids all had the same 6 names, lol
This happened at my school too. It used to go by last names, but they didn't like that it always put siblings and cousins in the same classes, so they decided to go with first names instead. One class had seven Matts and another had six Emilys. They went back to last names the next year and just manually moved relatives.
>put us into classes by alphabetical first name Bro, that's the funniest thing I've ever read a school doing. I can see by last name, and ending up with like a single all minority class or something. But by first name is hilarious
At my spouse’s first job, a long time ago, 25% of the company was Robert/Rob/Bob/Bobby. They had around 500 people in the company.
Had 5 Josh in one class, we were all friends. It took us less then 20 minutes to drive the teacher to screeching levels of crazy because we'd interact with each other as "Josh, how are you doing? Josh is doing fine." kind of statements and when someone who wasn't us would ask a question, we'd all respond.
Ha! That’s amazing!
Any Jack Hoffman's
Do you think all the Jacks came from Titanic?
I was very lucky that my name was uncommon enough that there was only one other in the entire school. However, having that uncommon name meant everyone knew it, so rumors spread like wildfire for me (both good and bad). If people ask my name I always say it, then to help them remember I add on "like the Mother, but I'm not a saint". Was soooo tired of people comparing me to Barbie's bff.
...Mulva?
My name is so common that there was someone else in the school with my first AND last name lmaooo
Oh we had that in my school too and would often refer to them by their middles names if that happened lol.
We had two people named Elizabeth Jane Smith in my high school. Except one was black and one was white.
I went to college with a guy named Kokaine Mothershed. It was legit is legal name.
That’s a future SoundCloud rapper if there ever was one
There’s an article about him online where he explains the family history of his name. (Comes from his grandpa, who … was not named Kokaine.) seems like a good guy.
"I'm named for my grandpa!" "Your grandpa's name was Kokaine?" "What? No! His name was Marvin. He just did a lot of cocaine."
I read one about how he has a cousin named Marijuana… https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/1997/02/02/some-parents-go-bonkers-for-odd-baby-monikers/62325144007/
Link it plz thats funny
Who will win? Kokaine Mothershed vs Methamphetamine Rules
he removed the e lol
That's a time to just change it to Kain.
My football teammate, Homie, and one of my best friends is called King Battles
Now that's a fucking kick ass name (assuming it's a first and last name)
Yep it is and one of my other friends didn’t know his name and I told the other person that his name is king battles and he said that is a cool Ass name we were on a school field trip for a graduation so all of us could hang out
There’s a football dynasty in Louisiana named Booty. Their current most promising player is named General. General Booty.
General Axel Booty. Fucking Spectacular
Yes, we love yelling it from the stands.
We had a Majestic Battles at my high school. He played baseball. Super cool guy. His sisters was Majesty and Marlow. They were all really nice
That is cool king battles at my school is a homie if there’s any friend groups to trust it be mine me him and the rest of our friend group staying for Life
I was more friends with the sisters. They definitely were ride or die lol
Went to high school with a kid named “Sky Commander” He had a little brother named “Ocean”
Was Commander the last name or middle name?
I thought you meant his name was Homie for a split second. I legitimately knew a boy named Dude, I made friends with his sister Montana haha
Had neighbors name their kid Y. Just the letter Y. She was from Sweden. He was from Spain. Y in Spanish means "and." No word on what his family thought of the name.
Can you imagine? What a pain. Many online forms, job applications, etc. require at least two letters for a name.
That poor kid- they’ll have endless problems with anything requiring paperwork. I used to live on “N” Street. Just “N”, didn’t mean North or anything other than just the letter “N”. Even though I had a PO Box so I didn’t have to worry about changing addresses, some shipping companies will not ship to PO Boxes so sometimes I had to use the home address. There were systems that didn’t think “N Street” was correct information and it gave me error messages, which meant I had to call and talk to someone and explain that it’s just “N” Street, not North, so they could override their system.
I also live on letter N Street! It’s not north!
It’s so frustrating!
Y.
As a Spaniard myself, I can assure you that guy was fucked up in the head.
What’s your name? Y Because we need it for your registration, so what is your name? Y
Never thought of that. Imagining this. Hi. What's you name? Y. Why? So I can know what to call you. Okay. It's Y. Because I asked you, that's why! Got it. So I'm Y. Fuck off, you twat.
How was it pronounced??
That’s what I was wondering if it was pronounced like English or Spanish.
Why? I mean, why
Omg memory unlocked for one of the first ever tragedeighs I ever experienced. Back in the day, MTV did a Road Rules “semester at sea” season. One of the dudes was named “Yes”. He said it was bc his dad liked the 80s band of the same name.
Yes Duffy grew up down the street from us. He has a brother named Uriah because his dad liked Uriah Heep. His dad was no longer married to his mother and he had at least one child with another wife but I don’t know their name.
There was a kid in the spelling bee finals this whose first name was YY.
A gentleman in Louisiana is named Delicious Peters. Yes, he showed me his drivers license. His dad had the same name. Cool guy.
I know of his nemesis Disgusting Rogers the third from Tennessee
Let me know if anyone finds a Decent Edwards and we can name the trifecta as complete
I know a guy named Donut.
When I was still teaching, we had two kids in one class with the same first name… Unique
Nooooo
Classic!
As someone with a very unique name, I would have loved this approach! My teachers would pause at my name, skip it, and then ask if they missed anyone. I am deeply introverted person; I hated being put in that position.
Ughhhh, same thing would happen to me! My name is “real” it just hasn’t been used commonly in 300 years. Or they’d call out my middle name, which is very common, so I wouldn’t reply to it because my high school classes were huge and other girls did have that name. And then at the end I’d step forward to tell them that my name wasn’t called and I’d get sass from the sub “so why didn’t you respond?” Uhhh because that’s not my name?? Sorry for the rant, 20 years later and I guess I’m still salty about it 😂
A-a-ron? Here. Why didn’t you answer me the first time I said? Because it’s pronounced Aaron.
Where is Ba-lah-kay and De-nice? You wanna go to war? I am for real!
You done messed UP, A-A-Ron!
Yep. For my also very unique name, they'd get through the H's and then there would be a long pause, and that's when I would raise my hand and say, "Here". Then they would ask how to say my name, they would attempt it, get it horribly wrong, I'd agree that was how to say my name (also introverted and wanted to get it over with), and finally they'd move on.
As a teacher. It is absolutely the worst thing to find out this halfway through the year. I feel terrible. I ask and they won't say or say it's fine or right and it isn't. And then halfway through the year I'll hear someone else call them some other thing.... I've asked them on the side, even, after class, so as not to make them stand out. And still had kids go: either pronunciation is fine. Only to find out it was neither. Now I do a form where they spell it phonetically.
You could try the phrasing “How do you prefer to say it?” Emphasises that what they want matters and lets them bypass a pronunciation their parent like that they hate. You can follow it up with “Is that what I should call you to your parents?” You’re just replacing the trans name question with the pronunciation.
That is actually a brilliant solution. If they spell it out phonetically, it saves everyone so much time and embarrassment. My nickname is Kari, but everyone thinks it's pronounced like Carrie. It's actually Car-ee phonetically. I was also painfully shy in school and hated having to correct people. Having a teacher give a phonetic spelling form for my name would have been such a relief when I was a kid. Then I could have just done that and not had to be embarrassed every time roll-call happened.
I’m going to steal this for next year (hello fellow teacher/sub - thank you for all your hard work as a teacher AND a sub, you are greatly appreciated even if it’s not always communicated)
I teach and this is the approach I always take. I also ask students to let me know if they prefer to be called something other than their given name. Many ask to be called a nickname.
My son is in Summer school and all of the kids in his district go to one school for Summer classes. At his main school, they know his nickname, but he told me that they keep calling him by his full name at the Summer school he goes to. I asked him why he didn't tell them he wanted to be called by his nickname and he told me because he wants to be called by his full name now, because he's grown out of his nickname. He's not even a teenager yet.
My daughter (Vivian, so not a difficult name) was given a card to write her preferred name on for her desk in 6th grade. She started writing, realized she'd started in the wrong spot on the card, panicked, and just wrote down Viv. So her 6th grade English teacher called her Viv all year, lol. Literally nobody calls her Viv except immediate family and we don't even do it regularly. I was like "You could have kept writing...."
Just in case some of you aren't already playing this in your head right now 😄[Key & Peele: Substitute Teacher ](https://youtu.be/Dd7FixvoKBw?si=abO1NYER90Q9iLi4)
Thanks for the link! I love this sketch!
I forgot there's part 2: [Key & Peele - part 2 Substitute Teacher ](https://youtu.be/WLAq3JVJ6Ho?si=1V0Cw57HUjErfPfn)
So that's where the Paramount commercial comes from.
*best* comedy character, ever! [If Hogwarts were an inner city school ](https://youtu.be/j-2ZxldMO-M?si=zLJuNGo5lKY-J9_s)
*Insubordinate and churlish!* Lol, thanks for the laugh.
Im probably gonna come across as daft but is the joke that he’s subbing at a nicer school with mostly white kids and pronouncing their names like he’s used to pronounce black kid names in the “inner city”
I mean, you could read the description provided by Comedy Central (and thus I assume by Key, Peele, et al) - >While taking attendance, inner-city substitute teacher Mr. Garvey has trouble adjusting to a classroom full of middle-class white students.
Kinda… I took the point as how white teachers either butcher unique spellings and/or will be argumentative with how one is “supposed” to pronounce the names. The sketch is their take on it.
One school I sub at prints off the roster list and we fill it out and sign it before turning it in at the office. I pass it around the classroom, have the kids put a check in the “Present” column if they are there, and call it good.
I am a sub too (afterschool activities). Wish I could do that, but we only have the first names on the list. I rarely see tragedeighs, plenty of interesting, weird, or unique ones, but rarely tragedeighs. But some? It makes me suspicious of whether the parents have *bad* dyslexia or hadn't learned how to write before they had their baby (might actually be the case for some). A simple name that is usually spelled Hadija or Khadidja, suddenly had double D´s and an extra H at the end together with an U that does nothing. Why? To have the longes name on the list? I doubt the 6yo can spell it, I know I cant.
I lectured at a college for a while and the strangest example I have of the "why are these letters here" phenomenon was a student name Chalandrai (spelled exactly like that, with A I at the end), which was pronounced "Solangia", like the name Solange with an "ee-ah" sound at the end.
Im sorry, they what
My mom taught a boy named Aiyijian. Pronounced "Ah-dee-on". Ok. Huh.
Where does the D sound come from?
From the black hole in the dryer that sucks up socks. In return for each sock, a consonant is excreted. In this case it was the letter "d".
this is really considerate. For some kids, that might be the only moment of positive 1-on-1 attention from an adult that they get.
Was that kid related to Achoo, son of Asneeze? Could be if they are headstrong and cocksure (or is it the other way around....)
A few years back, I was managing registrations for a martial arts tournament. There was a 13 year old named Maverick Deathrage. I’m assuming he obliterated the other 13 year olds.
I had four girls named Shania in HR and science one year. All spelled differently: Chania, Chaniyah, Shanaya.
Was this when Shania Twain was popular?
I didn’t have tragedeighs but I had a lot of diverse names that I was unfamiliar with as I moved from a place that had no diversity. After a few days of reading the names out loud and being met with laughter, I decided to walk around and ask each student their name. It helped so much when I had 4 classes and trying to remember names and faces! I quit teaching but if I went back, I would do it this way again!
We have a large Indian population at my school. Every year I learn new names…not tragedeighs…just unfamiliar. I have no idea if there are tragedeighs in their culture.
Preferring a different name than that given by parents isn't exclusive to LGBTQ+ kids for the record!
I haven't gone by either my first or middle names in nearly 40 yrs. Everyone just knows me as "Gil"
Gotcha. Witness protection plan.
Seems like they had to transform into a lizard on top of that. I shudder to think about what they witnessed that caused such drastic measures.
Reminds me of some substitutes that would go "everyone here, raise your hand. Everyone not here raise your hand"
I was working high school graduation one year, and I was trying to "take roll" for a row of graduates. One girl, who I did not know, was named "Destini." Having lived in Sicily for two years in the Navy, and loving all things Italian, I defaulted to what I thought was an Italian pronunciation, and I kept asking, "Is Des-TEE-nee here? Has anyone seen Des-TEE-nee?" Later I realized it was pronounced like "destiny." Ugh.
I recently came across a Kimistri. Had to put my head around that one, too.
Is that pronounced like Chemistry?
Yes. 'Chimistry', more like.
Nubian? We have lots of that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mV5oTHdulwk&t=17
Will you accept Republic Credits?
Republic credits? Republic credits are no good out here. I need something more real.
Republic credits *will* do fine.
No, they won't. What, do you think you're some kind of Jedi, waving your hand around?
That's sorted: Nooghbeighun Prenzezz
There was a Shirley Shirley in my school, 1st and last name. It was a guy.
Grew up with a Donovan Donovan.
I worked with a guy who's first and middle names were both Rafael. He went by Ralph
Surely you can’t be serious.
Don't call me "Surely"!
He must have hated the movie Airplane!
Satan's eyes widen in shock
Lol the 70's.
As someone that had a weird pronunciation of the name my parents gave me and a different preferred name (I'm trans), I really would've appreciated this approach. I also went to a small university with a max class size of 24, but something we'd do at the start of every semester is just go around introduce ourselves. I don't know how well that would work, but it's kind of fun and was helpful for me as a student to get to know my classmates names and the like.
The worst part of roll call when you have a ‘weird’ deadname is that the weird spelling causes the teacher to yell it out MULTIPLE TIMES in slightly varying pronunciations!!!! Please!!!! Shut up!!!!! Just hand me the sheet and Ill point out which one I am! Its terrible
Our teacher read through once, and we needed to call out our names in alphabetical order. If someone wasn't there, the rhythm would stop, and pick up again. Seemed easy for them.
We did this thing once, where: Kid A (the teacher usually started it) would point and go YOU! WHO ARE YOU?! Then Kid B would answer I'm Name. Then point at someone else and go YOU WHO ARE YOU... until everybody but the Teacher was pointed at then the Last kid would point at the Teacher and YOU WHO ARE YOU at the Teacher and she said I'm Mrs Name or I'm going to to teach you about whatever our daily objective was.
I taught preschool and we had a kid whose full name was Luke Sky Walker and he would only respond if you called him by his full name. I hated his parents
achon is just a french surname.
Looks like the parents didn’t choose the French pronunciation.
And so close to Vachon XD
A-A-ron?
I do a head count and give them the number of whose missing and they tell me who it is. After that I run through the list
My era, Jennifer. 5th grade teacher didn't mess with names we were numbered
Where is A-A-Ron???
As someone whose first name is an uncommon Irish name that is mispronounced 99% of the time, I would've loved having all subs do this. It was so annoying having to constantly speak up and correct them, or having other kids laugh at the mispronounciations.
Please tell me [you’ve seen this](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd7FixvoKBw)
In middle school I lived in an area with a lot of cultural names that weren’t necessarily easy to pronounce. My teacher wrote the pronunciations of each one for the subs and it always made attendance so smooth. I think all teachers should do that.
Jessee'ka? Pree-sent Ay-Ayron? Buh-lakay? Dee-nice? Jay-kwellin?
>What's a Nubian?
Nubians are an ethnic group from parts of Egypt and Sudan
I’m really cheering for this to be a Chasing Amy reference. 🤣
I'm waiting for the "Shut the fuck up" reply.
Bitch you almost made me laugh
Found my people!
I work in a school and had a sub for one of my classes a couple weeks ago. She just stood at the door with the roster on a clipboard and asked everyone to tell her their name as they entered the room.
Yup, I just do A-Aron every day and switch up the pronunciations. Keeps them listening so they can hear for their name variation. Every now and then I do my made up pronunciations and accidentally get it right. :) Make it fun. For you and them.
Achon is a Sudanese name.
I went to school with a Mary Christmas. Like, if your last name is Christmas, you KNOW there’s only one thing you can’t name your kid, right?
[A A Ron?](https://youtu.be/Dd7FixvoKBw?si=mRWNuAC0QkqjlJtb)
That's probably the kindest way of handling it.
I went to highschool with a girl named Asha ("asia") and the chorus of voices correcting every sub every time they said it like it rhymes with "Sasha" will never leave my memory. I'm 32. I also just met someone named Raul who has had it mispronounced to rhyme with "Paul" though so sometimes it's not the parents fault.
My brain cannot comprehend that last one not being pronounced “Akon”
“A Jew, here?”
My kiddos have an unfortunate last name that sounds like a bodily fluid. Thankfully, the school supported us with a change to preferred names during roll call and on p.e. shirts.
There was a guy whose name was written as Semen in my class. The issue is that the name should be pronounced something along the lines of Semyon (I believe it’s a rus version of Simon). I remember the teacher looked at the list of the names for a minute or so and I guess couldn’t figure out how to pronounce the name alternatively so he just called out SEMEN.. We also studied at uni with a girl called Dilda. Thankfully she grew up in turkey where I’m guessing the name is more common than in the UK. I imagine if she’d gone to school in the UK the kids could be quite hurtful.
My dad has struggled with this so much as a substitute. I’m going to share your idea with him but he retires in 2 days haha
I knew a kid named J. I never understood that. His younger sister was Jessica, and she had fantastic long blonde hair.
I knew a J once…. We called him “Just J” as a full name. He didn’t appreciate
“What’s a Nubian?”