Wednesday, November 9, 2016

An Abundance of Christians


I don't normally use students' real names on this blog, but I couldn't let this pass without commenting.

I was called in to cover an extra period on "my" prep. 9th grade special ed. English. Small class--there were about 13 of them. And as I was going through the roll, someone clued me in.

"Which Christian do you mean? There are four..."

Yup. Four boys named Christian in one class.

I once had a class that had three Abigails, but that was a full-sized class of 30-something. And then, of course, there was the time that there were seven Joses on the soccer team.

And two of the Christians had the same last name.

Because that's not going to be confusing at all.

This reminds me of the Jose Lopez cluster of '06. One school had like a dozen of them. (I'm exaggerating. But only slightly.) There were multiple times that I had two (I think once I had three) Jose Lopezes in the same class.

One Christian informed me he went by his last name. (Understandable.) He was actually very well behaved. The second didn't make much of an impression (which means he wasn't an issue either). The last two... Well, they have made appearances on this blog before...

And, they kind of look alike. Not exactly, but close.

I'm not saying any more. Privacy and them being minors and all.

33 comments:

  1. Christian is an interesting name choice for there to be so many off in one small class. John I could see, but Christian? Did any of the 3 go by nicknames like "Chris" for example?

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    1. One went by his last name. As for the others, I don't know. Probably in a year or so they'll figure that out. (They're freshmen now.)

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  2. Interesting to have that many in one class! What are the odds, I wonder?

    Son has a relatively common name and where he works there are 3 others with the same name. He goes by a shortened version of our last name; it works for them :)

    betty

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  3. That's not a name you see often now, which is really surprising. I wonder at what point one or two of them will start going by Chris.

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  4. I knew Abigail was a trending name, but Joses and Christian? I never would have guessed.

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  5. Both of my sons have common names, Daniel and Justin. They both had others in their classes with the same name. They figured it out. I am sure your students will too!

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    1. I think they already have. It's common to have duplicate names. Today I had two Leslies in one period.

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  6. Did they have nicknames? That would help. :)

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  7. On one school placement I was on it seemed like every other girl was some variation on Sophie, Sofie, Sophia or Sofia. Not confusing at all. Especially as many of them had Mac or Mc surnames too!

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    1. At my retail job one Christmas, we had three girls with some same name or other (I forget what), and two had the same last initial. So, I told them that one was Linda 1, then Linda 2, and Linda 3. They went with it.

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  8. Oh wow >.< You wouldn't think there would be 4 with the same name in such a small class!!

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  9. My daughter, Jennifer, had three BFF in high school. Jennifer, Jennifer, and Amy. One afternoon she asked me, "Can you take Jennifer, Jennifer, Amy and I to the game?" I looked at her and asked, "What does Amy say when asks her mother to take all of you somewhere? 'Mom, can you take Jennifer, Jennifer, Jennifer, and I to the game?'" (I thought I was being so original when I named her...)

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    1. Your daughter must be about my age. Love Story? I think I had at least one Jennifer in every class I had, maybe two.

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  10. Man, four in one class. I would run into a duo in names like John and Paul but never a single Christian. Maybe they should come wearing different colors every day for teachers to tell them apart.

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  11. Wow. I don't think there were any kids in my school with the same first AND last names. That would be super-confusing, especially if they were in the same class!

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  12. Don't come to my company. An abundance of Lauras, Lauries, Loris, Susans, Dianes, and more. Two high executives are called "The Ricks" as in "did The Ricks sign off?" One is Richard and the other Frederick. Alana (the one and only) ramblinwitham.blogspot.com

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    1. Did you ever watch The Good Wife? One of the main characters' names was Cary. And they had another character named Cary. Because they had a couple Michaels on the writing staff, and they realized that this is kind of normal in the real world.

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  13. There was quite a few Kathy, Debbie, Linda, Sue, John, Bill and Mike when I was in schoo.
    Coffee is on

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    1. Which kind of tells me how old you are. If I told you the abundant names when I was in school, I'm sure it would date me as well.

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  14. This must be a thing in your area. I can think of one person I know named Christian. Now 'Matt's' on the other hand...I've got 6 of them in my phone alone.

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    1. Matt's a fairly common name around here, too. Not a lot, though. The Christian thing is due to the large Latino population.

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  15. Call em all honey and call it done I reckon.

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  16. Haha. I agree with Sue above. I just call them all darling. I've had a Taneisha, Kimeesha, Taneeka, Shakimra, Shakeera, Talitha... all in the same class. Not even joking.

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    1. I believe you. But keep those names on the downlow, would you? Parents around here would totally use them (and I've seen similar names used).

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  17. That would be incredibly confusing, and a little annoying. I didn't realize Christian was such a popular name.

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  18. One always knows what the "in" names are. In the late '80's everyone was calling their girls Amanda or Ashley. In the early 90's i was seeing a lot of Nicholas's. I have had many clients, from Mexico, Central or South America and most of them had their first name as Jose actually. people don't realize this could be a nightmare for the kids later on when they get credit and have their own credit report. I have seen countless mistakes on the credit reports which sucks if one is going for a loan

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  19. That is a lot of Christians. One of my cousins is named Christian. He would have been one of the handful ones. lol

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