Are children teased for their name on school?

[LizardOfOz]

I see on many threads the sentiment "don't call your child X , they'll be teased in school".

As a teacher for 15 years I have never heard a child's name being teased. At most it's an unwanted nickname eg Alex instead of Alexander. And never in a mean way. Just most Alexanders are called Alex.

What have other teachers/parents found

YABU : children are frequently teased for/about their name

YANBU : I have never heard of a child's name being teased by their peers either

Yup - Constantine - getting called Cunt for short in school.

I did not know you can do that

I don't think children do get teased for their names now. There is such a very wide diverse range of names that nothing is unusual.

Children can be little shits to each other and a child can be teased for anything.

I think people don’t tease abit on names but it’s mainly adults who do it.

in DDs school, the teacher gives everyone a nickname and it’s related to their actual name.

For example (these are not real children’s names I know) ….

Child named Kendal will be Burnley
Child with a surname Strong will be called weak.
Child with a surname Wool will be Mr/Miss Sheep

Apparently, according to another poster, it wasnt spelt like that. Probably named after a famous historical person.

But being infant children, kangaroos did feature in the teasing.

It is unusual, but I have known it to happen.
One child I taught had the surname Pratt, and eventually switched to what had been mother's maiden name, but not much of the teasig about that was at our Junior School.
Sometimes names from other cultures can sound unfortunate. We called Harshit, Harshie as a workaround, but of course in the heat of an argument, it's a chink in the armour, and a sweet little girl called Siliphat suffered similarly.

Hasn't anyone told her to stop, and call the children by their actual names?

I think the teacher does call them by their actual name but does also sometimes use the nickname he’s given them.

the only problem was is that I wasn’t overly fond of the nickname he’d given DD and other children started to call it her in everyday life then

Yep, I was teased for my name. In fact people are still "funny" with it and I'm almost 50.

But when you name your kids you don't KNOW what's likely to get them picked on. It only takes a dodgy celeb with the name you carefully hand-picked to be neutral and 'unbullyable' or a song brought out with that name in the title, or a piece of electronics (Alexa, I am looking at you). You can't legislate for the future.

Not first name but I was mocked relentlessly for my surname at school. It sounds very similar to a swear word. I used to cringe whenever my name was called out in assembly and most of the school laughed.

Got rid of that name asap when I got married :D

It's true you can't predict it. When I was little, Mark was a common and totally ordinary name, so we had several - Top Mark, Marky Mark and (inevitably) Skid Mark. Skiddy didn't mind, but Marky Mark hated it, which of course meant he was never known as anything else, for years. He actually lives in Australia now so I hope he has got away from it.

He probably wishes he was called Lightning or Balonz.

Probably not these days given that ridiculous names are pretty common now. Baby in the supermarket the other day was called Hurricane! 😯

A Pratt family at our school changed their surname.

I don't think teasing is caused by the name, it's just a handle for teasing that would happen anyway

Have had the odd remark over the years - we had one but the wheel fell off, someone saying they'd have to go an read the new starters notice before calling me by name as it's so unusual.
Less than 400 on the planet, the only british passport holder, only one in France. Don't really care tbh.

Yes. Some things you can't do anything about. Some if the initials (like A R S or I. Ball) are something too spottable to pick up on. The most inventive ones I have heard was some kids on a train who had turned Jasmine into Jizzman and Jenny Taylor into Jenny Tay-lia. Annoyance factor, but easy to be on the end of if there's a witty streak to it when it's not you on the end of the joke.

Ah yes, and we had a W. Kerr (who got saddled with the nickname Wan). Again, teachers not bothered.

Not at school but at my last job we had an Alexa in the office and people were forever saying "Alexa" followed by the instruction which got a bit old after a while.

So if they didn't have a comedy name people would tease them anyway? Would they just make something up to tease them about?

Mine DD was called Isabell-end, so yes, some are teased.

Precisely. Once they've decided someone is the "outsider" (who they need in order to establish themselves as an "insider") then everything about them will become something they can be teased or bullied about. If the name is easy to use, they'll use that, if not it'll be their hair or their socks or how they speak or their height, or their shortness or something they once said.

Similar to political cartoonists - no matter how attractive (or just how normal) in appearance the politician is, the cartoonist can always find a feature to exaggerate.

And I knew someone whose surname was PinCock and he was never teased

This is my experience. Kids are fine about most things until adults point out they shouldn’t be.

my dd had short hair in reception. Absolutely fine until a parent made a big deal about only boys having short hair,

the amount of parents answering a child’s questions with answers like “it’s stupid a girl having short hair, girls should have long hair or people will think it’s a boy”.