Common names

story by Bree Moore ≫

Your name defines you. It tells others who you are.  It can tell you something about a person,  but it can just as easily mislead people. Throughout the school, there are a handful of  students who have  unique and different names. Then there’s also quite a few students who all share the same name.

Imagine getting called on and four other people with the same name answer. It gets kind of confusing. On top of that, there are names that students and teachers never seem to know how to pronounce. And oddly enough students get used to all of it.

When BreAwna Nuckolls, Soph., was younger, she used to hate her name. A uniquely pronounced and difficult to spell name caused her to correct people constantly in order for her to hear them say it right. As time has passed, Nuckolls has grown to like her name more. In the past she would always go by “Bre” but has realized that it has caused so much confusion now has teachers call her by her full name.

“My name is weird because it has a capital in the middle and not a lot of names are like that so people spell it like “Breanna” and I’ve had my own extended family spell it like “Breona” and eventually they just gave up and started calling me Bre,” said Nuckolls.

Ashley Metcalf, Frosh., feels that having a common name kind of sucks. For Metcalf, there are a large number of other students around the school who are named Ashley. . In addition to Ashley, here are many other girls and guys around the school with the extremely common names, and oftentimes it gets confusing. Metcalf always responds to her name but at times teachers mistake her for another person. One positive for her is that Ashley is rarely ever spelled wrong because it’s a familiar name and easy for everyone to spell.

“I like my name because I get to share a name with other people at my school and some family,” said Metcalf.

For Riley Hiebert, Frosh., having a common name means facing confusion throughout the whole school. Hiebert acknowledges that it gets confusing at times. When she hears her name called, she usually turns around and realizes that the person is looking  at her weird because they meant to call out to a different  person. Hiebert finds that teachers often mistake her for a different person in the class, not because she has an identical twin, but because of her common name. She also finds herself running into guys with the same name as her, and some people misidentify her as male because of her name. “What I love most about my name is that my name fits me and it defines who I am and not from all the other Rileys, I am my own version of Riley,” said Hiebert.

People tell Lydia Walls, Sr., that she has a beautiful name and she thinks that it being a common isn’t a bad thing at all. In her opinion, a lot of people have beautiful names, and she loves her name for that reason as well. One thing Walls does know is that she wants her own children someday to have unique names. For her, having a common name helped her make that decision. Because there are  other Lydia’s in the school, she finds that when someone calls out her name and they both look it’s awkward but in the end she laughs and realizes that it’s fine with her that they both have the same name.

“I love that my name used to be a country that held gold. It was pretty cool when I found that out. I also like that I can have many nicknames from my name, like Lyds. But the thing that I hate most about my name is that my name is never on any of the coke bottles, or keychains at stores,” said Walls.