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Giving English Names to Students

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This is a great idea to do at the beginning of class so that all class long the students will use English names and get used to pronunciation. It has the added benefit that they get used to the names themselves which makes reading texts a lot easier. Finally, it can set a mood in class that English class is a special time with special names and help get students in the mood to study more easily. But in some cases you may want to do this for only one lesson, particularly with some of the suggestions below on picking silly names.

There are many ways to give students new names:

1. Give them the English equivalent of their real names. For example, Pyoter or Pierre becomes Peter. Jean becomes John. Anton becomes Anthony or Tony. Obviously this doesn't work for every name or every language. But students often find it fascinating that there are such equivalents and it can be surprising to them how many names have similar roots. This might lead to a discussion of other words with the same roots in their language as in English and why that is (often in the sciences where a universal language is deliberate, or in new technology where words are adopted into many languages). For students that don't have obvious equivalents you might ask them to research on the Internet and come up with their own equivalent-though this can be quite challenging. But one student of mine named Gennady had great fun with this idea. In Russia, Gennady is a stereotypically German name, so he named himself Hans in English because in the US, Hans is a stereotypically German name. Another student was amazed to learn that the common Persian name Yussif was Joesph in English, and it had never occured to him that Islam and Christianity had common roots or shared figures! So going over equivalents can be a great lesson in itself.
2. Let the students pick their own names. Some students may have a favorite name.
3. One variation on this is to let them pick names of famous people they admire or respect. You can make it a guessing game for other students. For example, if one student decides to name herself Jennifer, the other students have to guess which famous Jennifer is her namesake (Lopez or Alba?). If students don't know many American or British famous people you can make suggestions based on what they like. Football fans can be named David (Beckham) and cooking nuts can be Jamie (Oliver) and so on. If every student picks a famous name this can lead to roleplays pretending to be that person, or an essay about that person.
4. Give them mascot names like Wolf, Hawk, Lion. Let them pick a totem animal and explain why they chose it. To be silly, instead of big fierce animals, have them pick household objects or parts of a car that they think they resemble in some way. For example, "I am like a tea kettle because I sing in the morning."
5. Another variation on this to have them come up with a name based on some characteristic. For example, my students love the fact that I play the guitar so I chose the name 'Guitar'. For more advanced classes I might chose the name 'Bard' or 'Minstrel' Another student who loves to eat bread, called himself "Bread"! A car nut in the class chose "Massaratti". You can have students come up with a name and then other students have to guess why they chose that name. Or you can have the whole class come up with names for other students based on what they think they are like, and then the student chooses one of the alternatives (Obviously if not carefully monitored students can choose all sorts of mean names for their classmates so be careful).

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