Growing up, I wasn't fond of my name. Most of my teachers assumed I was a Caucasian female on the first day of school. And even when I raised my hand to signify I was actually in attendance, I was often mistaken for having a question. Back then, I never thought about the type of name I should have based upon my appearance; I just knew Reygan wasn't it. Of course, my family and friends had what seemed to be a never ending cycle of jokes and nicknames. Both of my parents are self-proclaimed comedians. (You had to have really tough skin to survive in our home.) And I did. I don't know if you remember the protagonist in the movie The Exorcist. Her name was Reagan. Outside of being possessed by a demon, she did some pretty gross things in all three of the movies. (I'm sure you can imagine the jokes I encountered.) Then I was linked to former President Reagan and his infamous Reaganomics. On top of that, I grew up in New York. There, unique names were expected. However, when I moved to Atlanta as a teenager . . . being a black, male kid named Reygan, 6'3, loves sports and gangster rap, lives in the suburbs-let's just say I stuck out like a sore thumb in my community. So, I decided to go by my middle name until my college years. It hurt my mom's feelings, but at the time, I felt like it was a better fit for my personality. When I graduated from high school, my mother explained why she named all of her children gender neutral names. (I have two brothers as well.) In short, it was her attempt to shield us from any type of bias, prejudice, or racism that a name could encourage. Both of my parents were born in the 1960's and they're biracial. They lived during the Civil Rights Movement and have experienced the many changes America has continued to encounter. Our parents knew that their children would technically be a mixture of Native Americans (Cherokee), African Americans, and Hispanic (Puerto Rican) Americans. However, instead of teaching us about the different races, they taught us that there is only one race-the human race. They didn't want our skin color or a name to define us. They raised us to not see a person's color, religion, or gender. But to try and actually see the person for who they really are in the inside. In some weird way, the names we were given were designed to always remind us of that. A lesson we were never supposed to forget. It wasn't until I reached my early twenties that things started to make a lot of sense. For starters, it's interesting having a name that is somewhat ambiguous. (Without seeing you, people are forced to judge you on your skill set and credentials before anything else.) Secondly, most people, especially women, compliment me on my name. They say it has a nice flow. Instead of calling me Rey, they insist on calling me Reygan. Lastly, I guess it is unique. So far, I'm the only Reygan Reed that populates in Google. (Lucky me.) In 2020, I feel completely different about my name. Nowadays it symbolizes growth, maturity, and evolution. My name is something that I had to grow into in order to understand it. And with that, I guess I do look like a Reygan. Now that you know my story, tell me yours. Why was your name chosen? Is it a family name? What does it mean? What does it mean to you? Don't be afraid to do a little research and have a few conversations before responding. When you are ready to share, click on Comments to leave your reply.
Fracnisco Alcala
1/16/2020 09:15:39 am
How did I get my name? I never thought or questioned my name throughout my elementary years. I remember there was this one day where I did think about it. One day one of my teachers towards the end of 5th grade he asked me “how did you get your name?” Then I sat there for the whole day just thinking and I couldn’t think of an answer and it felt weird because if you think about it Francisco isn’t a really common name. Then on the weekend I went to go see my mom and I asked her “mom how did I get my name” and honestly, I would have never expected her response. She told me the day I was born my aunt died and her name in Spanish was “Pancha” so they named me after but in English you say Francisco or Francisca.
Mason Williams
1/19/2020 03:33:27 pm
Before I moved to Atlanta, I had no idea that Mason could be a girls name. But once I started 4th grade it became clear to me that Mason could be a girl or boys name. My peers thought that since my name was Mason I would be a girl, because another student that had previously attended the school was a girl with the name Mason. I had never thought of it as a gender neutral name until then, I only knew of boys named Mason, not girls.
Ashley Postell
1/20/2020 07:01:20 am
When I was younger, I liked my name, but I always thought it was basic. I knew that Ashley was a common name and I wondered why my parents named me Ashley. When I got older, I learned that I was given my first name for a reason. My mother named me Ashley so me and my dad could have the same first initial.
Cory Cannon
1/20/2020 09:00:35 am
I am Cory that’s my name, Cory Cannon. Before I was born my parents started to brainstorm ideas for my name. My dad almost instantly came up with the name Cory. He came up with it so quickly because it is what my aunt was going to name her kids if she had a boy which she didn’t. As a result, I was name Cory. My name has no religious or other language reason to be my name, but I still love it because the name describes me, and that’s really the only reason I need to enjoy having it.
Aidan Overcash
1/20/2020 03:04:18 pm
I’ve always liked my name. The only thing that bothered me about it was the spelling of my first name. The reason that my name is spelled unusually is because my brother (who was two at the time) chose the spelling of it. After my parents decided that my name was going to be Aidan, they were trying to decide how it should be spelled, and so they asked my brother how to spell it. Instead of saying Aiden, which is the normal spelling of my name, he said Aidan. Because of the unusual spelling of my name everyone spells it wrong. Originally it really bothered me, but now I've gotten used to it.
Jackson Kodani
1/20/2020 04:23:38 pm
Honestly, I haven't always liked my name. In fact at some points in my life, I hated it. I've learned to love my name now, but it used to bring me lots of negative comments, because of a similar project I had in third grade. We had to look up our names and I didn't really have an interesting one. My first name literally means, "The son of Jack," which is obvious to most.
Alexander Mondragon
1/20/2020 04:43:44 pm
I always kind of thought that my first name is too plain and basic. It is not unique and there are 221,727 Alexanders in the US. According to google my name means protector of people. The name origins from Greece.
Zach Murphey
1/20/2020 05:27:59 pm
I used to think about my name a lot, although I haven’t thought about it recently. Up until 5th grade, I was the only person I knew with my name, but then I met a few others. One day, I decided I wanted to know why my parents named me how they did, so I asked them. They told me they gave me my name because they looked at a list and thought Zach would be good enough.
Joel Louis-Ugbo
1/20/2020 05:47:26 pm
My name is very different from most people in America. Living in Nigeria, I standardly went by my name, Eshoreme Louis-Ugbo. Although in Georgia, it was different. People had a difficult time finding out how to pronounce my name and after awhile, my parents decided to use my middle “American” name, Joel.
Hailey James-Ricks
1/20/2020 07:44:15 pm
I have always liked my name, Hailey Carter James-Ricks. It’s a name no teacher ever mis-pronounces, but also a name that not everyone has. I had never asked my parents how I got my name until a few years ago.
Emily Ellingson
1/20/2020 08:35:13 pm
I never thought much about my name. I liked every part of my name except the popularity of it. When I was little I never knew how popular my name was, but while in elementary school I started realize it. People say “Emily,” but are talking to a different person, teachers call role and two people say here. It’s one of the most popular names in the English language.
Jailyn Davila-Tercero
1/20/2020 09:01:58 pm
As you know or may not know my name is Jailyn. My full name is Jailyn Vanessa Davila-Tercero. I mostly go by just Jailyn Davila because writing my full name on everything gets tiring and is unnecessary. Growing up people would always talk about their name like how they didn’t like it or how it was too common but personally i've always liked my name. In fact, I love it.
Winnta Daniel
1/21/2020 07:03:31 am
My name is something that causes a lot of confusion. Lots of people think that my name is a typo in the system. I used to cry about how “weird” my name was and about how normal my sisters name was. My name is something extremely important to me and let me tell you why.
Paityn Arnold
1/21/2020 08:32:37 am
As a kid, growing up I wanted to change my name a lot. I thought if I had a different name, as an adult it wouldn’t sound weird if a coworker called me by my first name. I tried to act it out, and sometimes I visualized it too. I thought if I changed my name it would be better, it would sound different, though it wouldn’t sound like a kid name. Every time I said my name or wrote it down, I thought about the name that I would want to change it to. All the names I thought of were pretty bad. Diamond was an option that I liked a lot, but I wasn’t sure because I liked the name Princess too.
Larry Perez-Perez
1/21/2020 08:39:45 am
My name Larry isn’t a usual name a Hispanic person would be named, my name was chosen at random. My name has nothing to do with my family but my middle name, is my father’s name unlike my siblings, my middle name is one of my parent’s name. My last name is hyphenated because my mom’s last name is Perez, but my father's family also has some Perez so I guess they decided to hyphenate it. My first name isn’t really a name you expect from a Hispanic so I guess it’s pretty weird for me to have it. But I don't bother caring what people think about my name. It's not a big deal, well at least to me. My last name sometimes causes confusion but it really wasn’t my choice to choose my last name.
Juan Quechol
1/21/2020 08:56:21 am
At first sight I believed myself to have a nice name since I had only been surrounded by others who speak the same language, but when I entered elementary school here, it became a weird name. I never disliked the name before I came to school, it just happened to occur. I had never wished for my name to be changed and found it weird that most people couldn’t pronounce it. Most people had common american names while mine was the odd one out of the bunch.
Katherine Maturino
1/21/2020 08:58:47 am
I never thought much about my name. It can mean whatever you want depending on your likes, dislikes, etc. But if you really want me to comment on it, I think it’s pretty lame. There are so many other names that liked: Maria, Camila, etc. I know it sounds stupid, but I used to say that my name was made out of leftover words (“my name has the words kat, the, and if you change the letter at the end: it becomes ring!”) Katherine just wasn’t really for me.
Nia Nelson
1/21/2020 09:04:00 am
Nia
Drew Flower
1/21/2020 05:24:17 pm
My real name is Andrew but i have been called Drew for my entire life. When i was born, my parents came up with the name Andrew but after they assigned my name they decided i looked more like a Drew. Being an only child i was only called drew but knew my real name was Andrew. Drew comes from England as the sir name of Herman de Drewes. (Drew is the nickname of Andrew so deal with it.) Its Greek meaning is Manly. I was only bullied 1 time for having the name of Drew but it lasted for a freaking year and the kids kept singing this stupid song. (Scared for life)
Kyra Rosenfeld
1/21/2020 07:17:25 pm
My name is Kyra, as in "keer-rah" not "kye-rah" or any other way. When all the substitutes, teachers, adults, and even kids can't pronounce or spell your name you get accustomed to the phrase, "actually it's Kyra." So, growing up I actually resented my name, I mean I still kind of do, but I'm slowly growing into it. Comments are closed.
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AuthorMr. Reygan Reed is a 8th grade English Language Arts teacher at Henderson Middle School. Archives
May 2021
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