A stack of blue and red "Hello, my name is" name tags

The importance of names

Best Practices, Resources, Teaching

By Lindsay Vreeland and Kevin Harris

Learning student names and pronouncing them correctly is an important step in helping students feel recognized as individuals and that they belong in the classroom. Though it might seem insignificant, inquiring about students’ preferred names and ensuring clarity on how to spell and pronounce them can build rapport, trust, and a sense of community. 

When individuals are repeatedly told that their names are difficult to pronounce, they often resort to adopting nicknames to fit in, prevent conflict, and feel included. However, names can carry historical, cultural, and personal significance, which can feel undermined when students’ names aren’t pronounced correctly. It’s difficult to be successful or feel engaged in a class when an instructor mispronounces your name or avoids saying your name altogether. 

In addition to having students introduce themselves on the first day of class, there are other activities you can employ that are aimed at becoming familiar with students’ names, pronunciation, and pronouns. The following are a few strategies to help you learn the names of your students and make it easier for students to learn the names of their classmates.

Suggestions for Learning Students’ Names

  • Include your name, pronunciation, and pronouns on both your syllabus and Blackboard to normalize the practice and reduce any stigma associated with sharing this information. 
  • Add your proper name, pronouns, and pronunciation to your profile in virtual meeting spaces like Teams, Zoom, or Collaborate, and show students how they can do the same. 
  • Ask students to add their name pronunciation in their Blackboard profile 
  • Create table tents for face-to-face classes. Folding card stock or file folders, students can create a self-standing name tag for their desk. Beyond names and pronouns, students can further personalize their tents. 
  • Use First-Day Info sheets to learn more about your students’ backgrounds and give them an opportunity to share their names and pronouns from the beginning of the semester. These questions could be distributed on paper during class, as a low-stakes assignment with Blackboard Forms, or in a survey from Qualtrics.  
  • When writing pronunciation, you and your students might want to use phonetics. For those of us that aren’t comfortable with phonetics, using a “sounds like” or “rhymes with” method can be helpful. e.g., Doetch (sounds like Dutch); Aífe (pronounced EE-fah); Trí (rhymes with free)  
  • Use multiple class sessions for introductions. Throughout the course’s initial weeks, you can build community and familiarize yourself with students by continuing to incorporate introductions into the class.  
  • Learn more about each other with The Story of Your Name activity. Individuals will share what their name is and where their name comes from. This activity can be used in all course modalities. For creating video or audio posts, VoiceThread and Yellowdig are excellent choices, while Blackboard Discussions and Padlet are better suited for written content. 
  • Include annotations on your roster. When someone shares a name or pronunciation with you, make sure to write that information down for easy future retrieval. Creating a roster with notes about students is a good way to learn about them, as well as keeping a record of their information, needs, and requests. 

Recover from Mistakes

At the end of the day, mistakes can happen, so knowing how to recover from mistakes is important. If you mispronounce someone’s name, or use the wrong name or pronouns, be sure to apologize, correct yourself, and move forward. Apologizing for mistakes helps create an environment where students feel comfortable speaking up and recognize that it isn’t rude to correct someone when they make a mistake about their identity. 

Additional Resources 

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