Bad names, bad kids

This is something I’d never have thought of myself, but having read it, I sort of wonder why I never thought of it. The BBC reports that teachers think they can tell which kids might be problematic by their names, and guess which names they identify?

According to the website, names which get a negative response from teacher include those with hyphens, like Bobbi-Jo, ordinary names with unusual spellings such as Kloe or K’tee, Kristopher, Jayne, Gyaike and Chevaughn, plus the various spellings of Jordon.

I struggled for a bit to work out what “Gyaike” was based on (Jake, I think). But really, one shouldn’t be surprised that a child with a mis-spelt, silly, chavvy name is assumed to be the child of an illiterate, silly chav. As long as they don’t treat such children like idiots just because their parents clearly are, the preconception is pretty natural in my opinion. It just so happens that only poor children are stigmatised in this way, of course. I wonder what teachers think when they get a child named Moon Unit or Fifi Trixibell.

(But on the bright side, Asam and Imran are among the names teachers associate with “delightful children”.)