::A Geek in Korea::

You can’t teach a class about toy bears without talking about Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt. The reason toy bears are called “Teddy Bears” is because Theodore Roosevelt refused to shoot a bear tied to a tree. According to our textbook, that is why the toys got named after “Teddy”. The book uses this as a way to introduce abbreviations. “Teddy” is short for Theodore.

I told my students that the name they call me wasn’t actually my given name. They were in complete shock, as if I had been living a double life the entire time I had been working at the school. I told them I had abbreviated my name, and not only that, had a middle name I never used. They were fascinated by the idea of having a name you don’t need. Why was it there? Who knew it? Did everyone in the United States have one? Why?

I explained that I don’t like my full name because I never used it as a child, and my middle name is just not something I really think about as part of my “name” at all. I literally only use it when filling out papers at immigration or for my governmental documentation. I don’t care enough to change my name, but I don’t use it in any social context what so ever.

Several of my students have recently changed their English names. This is something teachers discourage, as parents can get annoyed and confused by it, teachers have enough names to learn already, and it’s usually done in waves. If you let one person do it, everyone does. I’d like to review the names my students proposed, and explain why I like, or dislike the names suggested:

One girl changed her English name from “Amy” to “Ally”. This is the kind of name change I support. They start with the same letter. Ally is more unique, as we have other “Amy” students. It still suits her character. I told her I’d call her “Amy” by accident for a while, but I was fine writing down a different name on her papers from now on.

Another girl wanted to go from Ann to “Jenny”. This gets a solid two thumbs down from me. While my current school has several “Ann” variants, the name “Jenny” is by FAR the most common English name in my school ever. If a girl starts the school without an English name, she’ll pick Jenny 9 times out of 10. Jenny is the name students default to for whatever reason.

The last student that tried to change his name was an exceptionally noisy boy named “Tom” who proposed many different names in the past few days.

He made the mistake of trying to go to the bathroom yesterday by saying, “Teacher, Me Toilet”. I called him “Toilet” for the rest of the day. This is my well worn shtick for getting people to ask permission with the words, “May I,” before a request. If I didn’t do it, they’d never learn.

Today, he asked if he could change his name to something other than “Tom”. I wanted to see what he would suggest as a name before I agreed. He said, “Stone Cold Steve Austin”. He wanted to go by “Austin”. That name is fine, but he wanted it because a wrestler had it. That makes it off limits in my book. I discourage all pro wrestling enthusiasm in the exact same way. Cruelty. I would allow him to change his name to a wrestling theme, but only if his new name was “Man in Panties”.

(Editorial note: Ultimately this is what Pro Wrestling boils down to. Men in silly underwear hitting each other. As soon as you can acknowledge this, the sooner you can move past it.)

He said he would accept the title of “Magic Panty Man” as a compromise.

(Cultural Note: Huggies Diapers runs an advertisement in Korea for “Magic Panties” which he was quoting, so he really wanted to be called “Diaper Man”. Yes, it’s far weirder and disturbing than you first imagined.)

We gave “Magic Panty Man” that a test run for today, but I don’t think it will stick. It’s too long a title, and no one else will use it as a title when talking to him. I kept with it, but no one else was going along with the change. By the end of the class, he was completely enamored with the idea of having a middle name too. He told me I could call him “Tom Jerry Lincoln.”

The “Tom” and “Jerry” part I understand, but why did he pick “Lincoln” as his last name? That’s so random.