Can you give me an English name?

All of my students ask me again and again 'Do you remember my name?'. The answer is, unvariably, 'No'. This is pretty embarrassing, cos it's always the nice ones who try in class and who I should know. I stress to them the fact that I have over 1050 different students of my own, plus a good number of Anthony's who I also chat to regularly, and it would be impossible to memorise them all - and that's if I could memorise them. Chinese names are HARD. When they're all Wu Xi Mei, Tang Rei Li, Chung Wan Xi and Huang Li Fang, well, I just give up.

It's slightly easier when they have English names, but not all of them do. I have to say though, the English names that some of these kids do have certainly make them memorable.

Where do I start... Well, in the last post I went out for a picnic with two girls named Friday and Sunday, not forgetting good old Human Being. When I was doing some marking for the first time I came across this book with the name 'Human Being' on the front. I thought 'wise ass' and carried on. So I was a little surprised when while riding out to the mountains I struck up a conversation with the lad riding next to me:

'So, do you know the name of the place we're going to?'

'Sorry, no I don't. Let me introduce myself. My name's Human Being.'

'Oh. Ok. Right. Erm. Good.'

He said this so earnestly I could do nothing more than ride on!

We are good friends with two teachers, one of whom is called Seven, the other being Colour. Another teacher friend of ours has possibly the best name of all. He is a fairly geeky, bespectacled chemistry teacher who has a big thing for playing World of Warcraft on the internet. His English name?

Apollo.

As in God of the Sun.

While I think this name is seriously cool, I could think of no man less suited to carry the mantle of 'God'.

Stories from friends' schools have yielded students named Robot, Hitler and Satan. No guesses as to who were the previous teachers' least favourite students....

Best of all is Cinderella. Going against all preconceptions, Cinderella is one of the foulest, most irritating students you could imagine. She is overbearing, smelly, breathes on you and wants to be your friend...

Maybe not.

I think I have to get more creative in dishing out English names. One of the last names I gave out was Gareth...