Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Caffeinated]

Jeffley
Zeppelin

Poor boys.

[Sleepy in Seoul]

Raicheal, Toireasa, Una and Nainsi - lucky girls; Ruaidhri and Random - lucky boys?

[ThingsComeAround]

Shine

Shiny

[rumdiary]

I've had a couple Shines. Tarzan, Monkey Brain, Echo, Pretty, Paladin...the list could go on forever. The first hagwon I worked at encouraged kids to come up with their own names.

[gypsymaria]

Honey (a boy)
Apollo (he was adorable)
Bibiane (she wouldn't let me spell it with "V"s)
Also, I had a boy named Gabriel that I thought was a girl for the first month or so. I knew Gabriel could be a boy's name, but the only Gabriels I'd known in person were girls! And no, neither of the girls I knew spelled it "Gabrielle" or "Gabriella".

[Globutron]

Yeah but there's nothing to a name now, every since celebrities started getting imaginative. Now everything counts as a name. I could probably call my kid 'Codger the Flop' and get away with it without a second glance.

[interestedinhanguk]

Karat ( a boy).

[northway]

Jaffri

Beethoven (chose it himself at Korean age five)

Jet

Yoshi

Dino (just turned Korean age seven) - "Dino, why is your name Dino?" "Love the dinosaur."

Barbie

Bruno

[nukeday]

Gold Money (my personal favorite), Dick (only funny because my co-teacher hated it when I called him by name), 4 Dimensional, Jessica (male), Joyful (male)

Two kids split the name Optimus Prime in class, so one was Optimus and the other was Prime

[robot]

This will be a controversial opinion, but this is my firm position:

I do not accept joke names. Unusual names, no prob, but there's no way I'm going to let a kid be "Crazy Guy" or "David Beckham" or "Gold Money". I'm cool with that being their nickname, and may bust that out once in a while for them, but my kids who insist on having a silly name (though I realize that's somewhat of an subjective determination) are getting called by their proper Korean name.

Not trying to be a jerk, and I'm an extremely fun teacher otherwise; I just think a certain level of seriousness and respect is necessary sometimes. And just as it would be improper for me to set my Korean name as "King Sejong" or "Korea Dokdo Awesome", I find it sets a bad tone to have kids named after cartoon characters, adjectives, inanimate objects, etc.

[northway]

[NohopeSeriously]

Jaws (a boy's name).

[nukeday]

Well, the thing is, they make these names with prior English teachers often. I'm definitely not walking around saying "oh what English name do you want? Richard Hell and the Voidoids? You got it!"

I'm also not going to strip a kid of his English name he made with a prior teacher.

So I suppose this thread is poking fun of ignorant/complacent foreign and Korean teachers who let them choose these names, rather than the juvenile wit of the kids.

[Dedeko]

Zoy for a boy, but you say it Joey.

A little girl named "Winkle". No idea, and stopped really fighting this name stuff with only 8 weeks ish to go.

If I'm given the opportunity to help pick a name I go for something that means the same as their Korean name. If they have no idea something that MIGHT sound similar. Avoid the usual horrible letters:
B, V, I, F, Z

you know, the ones they choke all over when saying.

[gypsymaria]

I don't get to pick their names, or help them pick one, so I just roll with what they will answer to. If the English name is super weird or I don't know how to pronounce it (I had a kid named "Lye" for months before she told me it was pronounced "Lia") I just default to the Korean name. Sometimes kids will ask me to change their English name on the attendance sheet, and I'll do it. I haven't really had any super weird or "joke" names, thankfully. Just... unusual.

Honey and Apollo were pretty much the most adorable boys ever. I think their moms picked their names for them.