We have the students' legal names in front of us on the first day of school, but kids frequently go by other names, either middle or nick, and I always ask for guidance in pronunciation. In addition to the Abbies, Jack, and Maddie, and Ike, this year it seemed like there were a whole lot of kids with non-Anglo-Saxon names that had already thrown up their hands at the way native English speakers have mangled their names: Abidi was Abdi, Rayan was Ryan, Dibora was Debra, and Chinkhuslen asked to be called Charlie. (Coincidentally, he was sitting next to Charles, who wanted to be called Austin, not his middle name.) We also have a Zakary who is a girl, and in a quick write where she was asked to write something she wondered about, she wrote, I wonder where my dad came up with my name.
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