The topic for today's blog post is names. Since we are keen to get our students either able to write their own name (children and adults) or at least recognise it by sight, names are something I spend a lot of my day writing, reading, "sounding out" and teaching. This has created a number of unexpected issues. Let me explain:

Names tend to fall into one of a few categories.

1. "Western" names, if I can call them that, by which I mean names that a Westerner would be familar with: Lisa, Diana, Joshua, Samuel etc. including a few "Americanish" names - Jackson, Brooklin... These don't tend to cause much of a problem.
2. "Tanzanian" names, which I assume are derived from tribal languages or clans, such as Nahi, Namnyaki, Mwengu, Lembris and Lomoyani.
3. Names that appear to be Muslim in origin: Zulfa, Zabina, Imran.
4. "Religious" names. This category is an interesting one; it seems families choose a few words at random from the Bible and make them into a name. Thus we have a few simple biblical references - Jordan, Israel, Peniel... and a few stranger ones: Godlove, Lovegod, Godison, Love, Loveness, Bless, ...
5. Finally,  the names that are just a bit "odd" - Queen, Wini, Happy... Oh, and we have a Wolfgang too!

However, a name is a name and once you attach a personality, it loses any other incidental meaning. And so that in itself is not a problem.

The difficulty however comes with the spelling. To my embarassment I discovered last year that I had been teaching Joanitha to spell her name Joanita (same pronunciation). This year therefore, on registration day, I made it clear that we must ask the parents very specifically for how to spell their child's name.

Problem 1. Many parents cannot read or write. Some of those who attend my literacy class do not recognise their own name, let alone that of their child. So asking them if we have spelt their child's name correctly is something of a waste of time.

Problem 2. Swahili is a 'phonetic' language, by which I mean it is written as it is said. We therefore get 'Maikol" for what we would spell as Michael. Or "Devdi" as a corruption of David.

Problem 3. Our two Tanzanian teachers are themselves poor spellers. So on any one day we may get Brooklin, Brocklin or Broklyn.... Peter often gets written as Petro, and I'm still not sure if Gloria isn't in fact called Glory or Gloriy or Glori. We also have Laightness. At first I kept correcting this to Lightness, but since Teacher Happy consistently wrote it this way, I gave in. I do feel sorry for poor Laightness, for when we practice writing names she has rather more of a task than her friend Lisa.

I therefore come to the conclusion that it doesn't really matter how we spell the names. But then again it kind of does - I am a teacher after all!! So we have settled on a "standard spelling" for each child, and that is the one they will learn throughout their time at Cheka School. And hopefully when they become wonderfully literate adults (thanks entirely to their time at pre-school!) they will accept that is how their name is spelt and no-one will be able to argue otherwise!