Every student acquires an English name upon entry to any sort of English Academy like mine, which is part of the gimmick of learning the language....I suppose very similar to adopting a Spanish, French or German moniker as so many of us high school students toiled through the mandatory number of credits to legitimize our 'understanding' of the language in order to suffice collegiate eligibility in a foreign language (still not sure why foreign languages aren't learned at the elementary level but it's not really my call, now is it).
Usually most kids start soon after their kindergarten graduation (ridiculous concept). The thought behind this is there are two subjects of utmost importance a Korean can learn in school. First is Math followed closely by English, although many Koreans, it turns out, don't do much w/their English skills after completing college but I haven't fully figured out why just yet. Honestly, it seems like quite a waste of time, effort & money to spend all those years learning a language to rarely use it after your early 20's....
Back to the point - as the new crop of students roll through the doors, I've been fortunate enough to give a few of them their official English names & have wanted so badly to endow them w/quirky, off the wall tags like Tre, Qua$h (cash), Smooth, Chee-eese, Louscious, Bodhi, Funkdubious, Boniquafefe, Fahrvergnügen, Lafawnduh, Weezy - you know, some of those classicly American names people tend to shy away from for some reason.
Leah & I used to joke about peculiar kids names and I've still got a few in the arsenal but it's certainly been expanded since my time at Middleton as well as multiple viewings of the video above. Unfortunately, I can't pull the trigger for some reason & it's a serious bummer. I would absolutely love to give these kids really unique names but I just can't bring myself to do it.
Sidenote: at the Otae-dong school they let the kids pick their own names from a list & one kid actually picked Sonic....now I'm not sure if I'm more impressed that he had the gusto to go w/a name like Sonic or that it was even on the list in the first place.
Not sure if it's the sheer torture they would have attempting to pronounce them or the rigors of having to spell a few of them regularly but either way I just can't do it. Instead, I've bestowed the kids w/names of good friends or family. Only problem is the significant difficulty Asians have pronouncing the letters R & L as well as a few more complicated phonetic sounds like Ch & Sh, which have caused serious hurdles in the name game.
In the end, I suppose the little munchkins wouldn't really know the difference but I guess knowing my personal humor would be lost on nearly everyone, everyday; taking the more mature path to simple, common names is probably the best route but come on, who wouldn't love to call on Falafal, Sonic or Funkdubious from time to time!
I did actually pull off naming a kid Timmy yesterday and rest assured I will ALWAYS call on him in the same voice Timmmmmaaaaaaayyy uses in South Park.
Oh, the simple joys!
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