Question
Is it okay if I shorten a child's name or give him a nickname?
Answer
Never ask for permission to change a child's name. Parents might say, oh, that's okay, but they will resent it because Latino families are taught in general to avoid confrontation. Sometimes if you ask them in front of everybody they are going to say yes. They feel like you're an authority figure, so they're not going to say no to you. Try to pronounce the name of the child to the best of your ability. What you can say is, "Tell me how to say it correctly." If you're doing the best you can and are asking for the correct pronunciation, parents will respect that and children will understand that. I'm going to tell you something that happened to me. I remember when my nephew came to America. He went to his first day of school and came back home crying. He said, "I'm not going to that school anymore." When I asked him why, he said, "Because they're making fun of me." I thought, how do you know that? You don't know any English, and they don't know any Spanish. How do you know they're making fun of you? He said they were making fun of his name. His name is Moises and he said they were calling him Moses. We know that's how it's pronounced here, but he didn't, so he felt ridiculed. I had to explain to him that it had nothing to do with making fun of him. We started making jokes about all the names that people couldn't pronounce, and he finally understood, it's nothing about me. It's that they have a hard time pronouncing the name. He practiced some of their names and couldn't do it. He was five years old, and he came home feeling bad about how people were treating him even though it was not intentional whatsoever. Now imagine how they feel when we change or shorten their name or give them a nickname, that's even worse. Make sure the children understand that the pronunciation might be different because you can't do it. Kids understand that. Kids are very good and very forgiving if they know where you're coming from. So are parents. Try to pronounce the best you can, and go forward. That is the best you can do, but that will be something that is showing respect, and acceptance, and that's the most important part.
This Ask the Expert is an edited excerpt from the course, Cultural Awareness in Working with Families, by Anarella Cellitti, PhD.
