Saying a Name the Way It Is Said at Home

Some of the things that make a school feel welcoming are so small they are easy to miss. Saying a classmate's name correctly is one of them, and it is something our elementary students and teachers practice together.

This is the first post in Small Actions, a series we’ll return to throughout the year. Each one focuses on a single, repeatable action we can all take to help someone else feel seen and valued. Two of our core values sit behind all of them. Respect for All holds that each individual is a person of worth. Sense of Self describes a community in which each student can come to understand who they are in the world. A student who is uncertain whether they are fully welcome here cannot fully become who they are here.

Teachers Share Their Name Stories First

During the first month of school, teachers and administrators visited elementary classrooms to talk about the stories behind their own names, who chose them, what they mean, and how they have been pronounced, and sometimes mispronounced, over the years.

“Students see themselves in our stories,” shares EAL Coordinator Ceci Gomez-Galvez, “and it opens the door for them to ask their own families how they got their name, often sparking conversations about lineage, ancestry, and cultural and family heritage.”

That is what happened when Head of School Dr. Catriona Moran came to class.

“Even though you will still call me Dr. Moran, you now know how my grandmother gave me my name, and that it is pronounced Ca-TREE-na, not Ca-TREE-owna,” she shares with the students.

Classroom teacher Carrie McEwen watched her students take it in. “They felt honored that teachers and administrators came to our class to share such personal stories about their names,” she shares. “During each visit, there was a connection students could make with the story, whether to their own name, their family, culture, or to another story that had been shared.”

Recording a Name So It Can Be Said Correctly

Within the first few weeks of school, students in elementary classrooms also complete an exercise that takes only a moment but stays with them far longer, helping teachers understand how their names are pronounced.

The format is the same for everyone. Students first state their name correctly, then name two versions they’ve heard instead, and finally repeat the correct version. While some finish in one take, others play it back, decide a syllable needs more room, and try again.

“It was a bit awkward recording my voice, mostly because of the video,” shares Yuri, a Grade 5 student.

The students' recordings live in an in-house interface built for teachers. Before calling a student up in front of the class, a teacher can listen to the student's name in their own voice.

The thinking behind it is straightforward. Names are usually mispronounced out of uncertainty, not carelessness, and that uncertainty is easy to resolve when someone provides the answer.

What Students Say About Hearing Their Name Said Right

“My name feels more like my name when it is pronounced correctly,” shares Khai, a Grade 5 student.

A name said properly is the baseline, and students feel the difference when it’s missing. Many will tell you they don’t mind correcting someone who asks. Others have quietly stopped correcting anyone at all, and that second group is exactly who these recordings are for.

A name carries history, family, and the way a person is known at home. Letting students own its pronunciation, and the name they want to be called by, gives them room to decide what it means to them.

Alongside the recordings, teachers have been reading picture books about name changes and mispronunciation, including The Name Jar, Your Name Is a Song, and My Name Is Yoon. The read-alouds give younger students a way into a conversation they may not yet have words for.

A Small Action You Can Try This Week

The effort involved here is small, and it goes a long way. Learning a person’s name and how to say it works just as well outside the classroom, at a school event, in the pickup line, or with someone whose name we have avoided for fear of getting it wrong.

Children notice how the adults around them handle these moments, and they learn quickly whether asking is normal or awkward.

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A Small Action to Try This Week: Ask someone how their name is pronounced, say it back, and ask again if you didn’t get it the first time.

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