I like to imagine Kate gazing at Princess Charlotte's wrinkled little newborn face, wiping a tear from her eye and whispering, 'Tulisa. You'll always be Tulisa to me.' (SOMEONE PUT A BET ON IT)
In reality they probably had fifty boys' and girls' names open to them and even some of those were probably off-limits for one reason or another. Mary? Apparently the last Princess of Cambridge was a Mary, attractively nicknamed 'Fat Mary'. Hmm, maybe not. Henry? Bit too head-choppy-offy. Even something as staid as Charles is potentially risky: given its association with one of the monarchy's bloodiest periods, the Prince of Wales is said to be considering adopting another name when (if?) he gets his plant-loving mits on the throne.
No, naming a baby as a Royal must be grunt work - shifting through the many nos until you find a yes you can work with. Before you know it, you're down to the perfectly pleasant if predictable Elizabeth, Victoria, William or George, feeling a bit daring if you plump for Louis or Frances.
THIS IS WHERE I MAKE MY CONNECTIVE LEAP - ready? Voila: being a teacher is a bit like being a Royal. No, not because a phalanx of hairdressers is waiting to blowdry the hell out of one post-delivery or because one shares a gynaecologist with the Queen (it still makes me snigger that the Queen has an official gynaecologist) OR actually that one makes a habit of using the pronoun one; but because of this very naming issue. As a teacher you're similarly restricted in the names you might choose for your offspring, oh yes.
When it came to discussing names for our first-born, my husband (very much Not A Teacher) was driven demented. I had literally taught at least one kid with every name we discussed; not surprising, I suppose, ten years and thousands of students later. And as a result most of them were off-limits.
Some were on the basis of being 'too common'. I mean common as in 'there were lots of them' rather than in the manner of Katie Hopkins, by the way. Jack, Ben, Sam, Sophie, Katie herself - man, I've taught a LOT of Katies. I had a GCSE class once where they all kind of blurred into one; I had what felt like rows upon rows of bright, smiley, shiny-haired Katies in front of me. The more usual problem was that the name was already associated with a student, though and, whether I liked the kid or not, the association was pretty strong.
The conversation went a little like this:
'Alex?'
'Oh my Gohhhhhd, as if! I've taught five billion Alexs!'
'OK...Arthur?'
'I taught an Arthur once. He had a mohican.'
'Alice?'
'No. Just no.'
On the rare occasions we struck upon a name that I hadn't come across it was either a) totally wacky or b) an ex. Super.
Which then got us talking about the craziest names we'd come across in the workplace. Of course, the sheer volume of students I've come into contact with across three schools (five if you count training, and dozens more if you count colleague anecdotes) meant that I could massively top-trump his modest effort. I've taught a Jack Daniels, an Emily Dickinson and an Iona Fortune. In one of my placement schools in Dewsbury, I came across a Capri ('After the island?' 'Nah, the car.')
I heard a great story once about a teacher (a colleague's friend's husband's sister's school or something) who had a child in her class whose name appeared on the register as 'La-a'. The bemused teacher went with 'La' as in 'Doh, Ray, Me' etc and received an irate phone call a couple of days later. 'Why are you calling her 'Lah'?' Mum demanded to know. 'It's LA-DASH-A!'
Please don't burst my bubble and tell me that's an urban myth. Instead, please tell me about the most weird and wonderful names you've come across in teaching. And whether you found naming your own kids as tough as I did?
(We went for Patrick in the end. Don't tell me about any horrible Patricks thanks-bye)
No comments:
Post a Comment