Who has any personal experience with kids (or adults, but mainly kids) getting bullied for their name?
I’m talking about bullying as a result of the name itself, not bullying because the kid is weird about their name (e.g. suddenly begins using a middle name or NN so everyone has to relearn).
Parents-to-be fear it and avoid it like the plague, but does it happen? I’d like to know if it happened to anyone you know, or if you ever did it to someone else. I’m convinced it’s extremely uncommon. Prove me wrong.
Hmm, the only example I can think of off-hand was a kid named [name_u]Dylan[/name_u] [name_f]Perdy[/name_f] who was always called [name_u]Dylan[/name_u] [name_f]Perdy[/name_f]-Birdy because he was obsessed with the cockatiel that lived at my daycare. It didn’t bother him though. At the same daycare, one of the little girls started calling one of the teachers, Miss [name_u]Courtney[/name_u] “Miss Chutney” for no reason other than she thought it was funny. Miss [name_u]Courtney[/name_u] put an end to that pretty quickly. Other than that, I can’t recall any instances. And I went to school with a boy named [name_f]McKenna[/name_f] and a girl named [name_u]Aidyn[/name_u].
That’s very interesting, because [name_f]Perdy[/name_f] sounds like that was his last name, and nobody preconceives turning [name_u]Courtney[/name_u] into Chutney.
I have been working in elementary schools for the past 5 years, and can barely think of many times where names were made fun of, certainly not “bullied”.
In one second grade class, the teacher announced there would be a new student coming named Stori. Some kids were laughing and saying “read a story”, but once she came, no one said anything about her name.
Then in 5th grade, one particular boy was making fun of a girl partly for her name and partly because she was Muslim and was wearing a head covering. Her name was Kulsum.
I’m not sure if middle school and high school aged kids make fun of names more or not. I think its just as easy to make fun of a person’s last name than their first name.
Throughout my middle-to-late school years (middle school through high school), I was teased every so often because of my name. It’s [name_f]Alyssa[/name_f] and one of my male classmates discovered that my name backwards is Assyla…the “ass” part being the focus. It caught on pretty quickly and it was pretty hurtful at first. It eventually drifted off, for the most part. That was really about it, for my name.
A classmate of mine, [name_u]Ray[/name_u], was frequently called [name_u]Gay[/name_u] [name_u]Ray[/name_u].
Another classmate, [name_f]Brandi[/name_f], out get jokes about the alcohol connection.
A woman I know, [name_f]Cassie[/name_f], gets called Assie [name_f]Cassie[/name_f] or Gassy [name_f]Cassie[/name_f].
An [name_m]Adam[/name_m] I grew up with was always called ‘ad-DUMB’.
A [name_f]Brittany[/name_f] is called “Bit Me”, which she hates.
These are just examples that first came to my mind. So…I mean, it does happen and I can completely understand a parent being concerned that their child may be teased because of their name. It’s a valid thought, in my opinion. Frankly, kids and adults can be teased for any reason so I personally don’t worry about it too much, myself. All that being said, I do think the thought of name-related bullying is more prevalent than actual name bullying!
When I was a kid I used to get called “Assley Anus” ([name_u]Ashley[/name_u] last-name-that-when-pronounced-incorrectly-rhymes-with-anus).
That being said, kids are mean when they want to be. If it’s not the name it’ll be something else. I knew two kids with the same name, one was popular and the other wasn’t - the unpopular one had his name (and everything else) mocked mercilessly. I don’t put too much stock in the mocking potential, unless it’s an obvious one that I personally can’t get over.
I mostly know of teasing, I don’t know if it turned to actual bullying…
[name_f]Rowena[/name_f]: got "wiener " a lot.
[name_f]Betty[/name_f]: we had an African student named [name_f]Betty[/name_f], and it was around the time that that stupid song "black betty " was popular. So I remember a LOT of people singing it around her.
[name_m]Merlin[/name_m]: okay he was definitely bullied for his name.
[name_u]Paris[/name_u]: got a lot of [name_u]Paris[/name_u] [name_m]Hilton[/name_m] jokes
Maz: spaz maz
[name_f]Annie[/name_f]: [name_f]Fanny[/name_f]
[name_f]Naomi[/name_f]: I Moan
I used to be bus monitor in high school so I heard a lot!
I can’t think of any examples from my years in grade school. Teasing happened every now and then, but teasing and bullying aren’t the same thing to me.
Gosh, my brother goes out of his way to make fun of kids names. He can be a real ass sometimes. As a result, I have heard quite a few.
Sea bass for [name_m]Sebastian[/name_m]
Fill for [name_m]Philip[/name_m]
Bucket for [name_m]Beckett[/name_m]
[name_m]Colon[/name_m] for [name_m]Collin[/name_m]
Ass turd for astrid
Ass-imo for [name_m]Massimo[/name_m]
Canned ass for [name_f]Candice[/name_f]
Anus for aiden and all the aiden rhyming names
“Ew -and - what army” for [name_m]Ewan[/name_m]
[name_u]Dane[/name_u] train or [name_u]Dane[/name_u]-a-soar for [name_u]Dane[/name_u]
Nickel for [name_f]Nicole[/name_f]
Cheddar for heather
It goes on and on. These were just the few on the top of my head. There are a few others but these were the most straight foward.
[name_m]Martin[/name_m] turned into martin-pêcheur when in [name_f]France[/name_f], the only cruel thing about that was that he didn’t know that word and assumed it was something mean (it’s a small kind of bird)
Another classic would be [name_f]Anna[/name_f]-[name_f]Lena[/name_f] to Anal-[name_f]Ena[/name_f]
In my secondary school there was a girl who sometimes got teased because of her surname. (It was Cox. You can imagine the jokes.) But I can’t recall many other examples of name teasing.
I’m [name_f]Kathryn[/name_f] and got [name_f]Cat[/name_f] Urine.
Kids are creative so really any name can be made fun of, and if it’s not their name it will be their clothes, their hair, their family, their looks, etc.
I am the example of name bullying.
I can’t reveal my name cause I have some penp@ls and they might recognize me… Anyways, my name is just a normal name. BUT when you combine my name with my surname, it becomes a name of very famous [name_f]Kore[/name_f]@n@ctress. She is the most be@utiful person in Korea and she went to the most good university in [name_f]Kore[/name_f]@. However, thankfully I get good grades but I’m not pretty. So the boys always teased me about my name. ‘Her n@me is OOO but she’s not pretty ewwwwwww’ something like that. And when the new grade starts, the teachers were always like ‘Oh wow your name is OOO!’ and boys started to laugh.
That was my daily life at elementary school. When I get back to home, I cried and yelled to my parents why did you name me like that(Well, it’s not my parents that named me. A person whose job is n@ming babies is in my father’s side so he named me). And that’s why I’m obsessed with names.
I still get bullied about my name. It was very painful when I was younger but now I just ignore them. Well I know it’s very rare that you like the name [name_f]Scarlett[/name_f] and your surname is Johansson but I hope parents should consider the celeb association.
What I’m noticing is that people are right that if it’s not the name it’ll be something else. Also, entirely normal names such as [name_m]Adam[/name_m], [name_m]Philip[/name_m], and [name_f]Brittany[/name_f] are mutated for teasing. The conclusion I’m drawing from this is that only extremely obvious pop culture references are going to generate much bullying. In general, I think people come to know each name as that person’s name and not just a funny word. The name teasers will tease names, even if they’re normal.
I remembered I did make fun of a kid’s name ([name_m]Andrew[/name_m], so again, normal), but my mutation of it was so offensive I won’t post it… I was a godawful kid sometimes.
I agree with a previous poster about getting made fun of for a last name. My last name is often mispronounced as “Speeding” and even into high school people made fun of it. They called me speeding ticket which was annoying.:roll:
As for first names, I went to school with a girl named [name_u]Kelly[/name_u] and in elementary school kids thought it was funny ask if her sister was barbie [name_f]Barbie[/name_f] because she had blonde hair.
I never had anyone directly mock my name, although I regularly get told to go drown myself ([name_f]Ophelia[/name_f] haha) also in the small classes I was called Ninja-Viking because of my last name (a stereotypical Japanese name hyphenated with a stereotypical Scandinavian name) but I thought that was pretty funny
I was a godawful kid sometimes.