What’s In a Name?

Over the past few days, I have been making my way around my new school, doing introduction lessons and icebreaker games to try and get the students to feel comfortable speaking to me. After doing a powerpoint presentation about myself (“This is my home town! These are my parents! This is my sister! These are our pets!”) the students are allowed to ask questions about me. I try to encourage the students to take an interest in who I am, more than just a teacher they’ll see once every other week. By the end of the class, I usually have a few of the kids liking me, and the rest following suit in a few weeks time.

Yesterday, I met with one of my second year classes. The students were surprisingly active and talkative, which are my favourite types of students. There was one boy who must have been the class clown, because he had no fear in speaking up in broken, messed up English and sounding like an idiot. The entire class was asking questions about me, which was really fun. They asked about Canada, and my family, and of course asked if I had a boyfriend (to which I said no.)

Finally, one of the students in the back asked if I had a Korean name, I shook my head, saying no. I’d always liked the idea of getting a Korean name, and a Japanese name, because there’s almost always a meaning behind the names you choose for yourself. I’m jealous of Koreans when they get to pick their own English names, because it seems like so much fun. However, I speak no Korean, so any name I pick would be based purely off famous people. So I explained that nobody had ever really given me a Korean name before, and I didn’t know Korean to pick one myself.

The class clown (who I was already starting to call Trouble) announced, “Your name should be 박미소 (Park Miso)!”

Since I don’t understand Korean, I was just like “…Oh, okay?” But the rest of the students all nodded and seemed to really like the name. So, I asked my co-teacher if there was any meaning behind the name as Trouble kept rambling on.

“Miso means smile,” my co-teacher explained, obviously quite pleased that Trouble had said something nice that she could translate without rolling her eyes or shaking her head. “He’s saying he thinks you have a nice smile, so the name fits you well.”

…Well, I didn’t expect that.

I grinned some more, trying to not cry or anything at the overwhelming feeling of wanting to hug the life out of this boy who had paid me a huge compliment only minutes after getting to know me. “I really like that name,” I replied to him. “I think I might use that!”

Afterwards, I pulled my co-teacher aside to make sure I had the name written right, and had to ask, “Why is it Park Miso? Why that family name?”

My co-teacher laughed at my question. “That’s Trouble’s family name.”

…So I might be choosing a different family name. But I’m definitely going with 미소.