Teacher refused to use a student’s real name claiming it was hard to pronounce, so she returned the favor

A sixth-grader (u/sk1nnb0nes) had a teacher who refused to call her by her name and instead assigned a random name to her. So, in revenge, the student responded in kind all year, leaving her flabbergasted. The hilarious story was shared on Reddit on October 28, 2025. 

The student, Kau'i, was half-Japanese and half-white, and she was born and brought up in Hawai'i. She, of course, had a pretty unusual name, but it was not that difficult to pronounce. She was in a very diverse school which had students from different ethnic backgrounds. The problem began when her Maths teacher, Ms White, read her name on the attendance sheet and got it wrong on the first go. Kau'i immediately corrected her, but she just dismissed the student, insisting that she would call her Katherine instead. "I was FLABBERGASTED. It was like a private, very diverse school, and I had never had this happen," the student confessed. She said she had had teachers mispronounce her name, but this was something very new. "Also, no offense to any Katherines, but I love my name and it has a lot of meaning to my family," the student said. For two weeks, Kau'i didn't complain, but she was very disappointed because her teacher made no effort to learn to pronounce her name correctly. In response, the student started calling her teacher by her first name, Jessica. "She was the kind of teacher who NO ONE called by her first name. Even the other teachers called her Ms White. I had to look in the yearbook from the year before to find it. But from that day on, she was Jessica," Kau'i said.

Moreover, when the student realized that it wasn't enough to make her teacher mad, she even started calling her by nicknames like Jessie, Jess, or JJ. Surprisingly, the teacher didn't yell at her, but every time she called her by her first name or any nickname, she corrected Kau'i. "She called me Katherine for the rest of the year, so not the most satisfying story, but I was happy with that revenge. Ms. White apparently got fired two years later for microaggressions towards students of color, and honestly, I’m not surprised," the student shared. Having someone mispronounce your name, even after repeated corrections or calling you by some random names, can feel like somebody trying to erase your identity. Kau'i was a child, but she also felt ignored when her teacher refused to put effort to learn to pronounce her name correctly.

In fact, research by online tutoring company Preplay found that 1 in 3 students in the UK have faced bullying or discrimination because of their name. And a majority of them (88%) felt that this could have been avoided if teachers or their peers had been open to learning to pronounce their names, rather than guessing or avoiding it. They also found that 82% of students felt bad, and 59% felt disrespected when their names were mispronounced. 

Meanwhile, reacting to the Reddit story, u/nikknakkpattywhakk commented, "You should have just made up a name, like she did... 'Hey Brenda, a little help over here, please!' Either way, this is classic! Nice job." u/winterfrosting860 wrote, "Good job, you! I used to teach sixth grade, and I had a whole speech I gave each year about how I wanted students to correct me if/when I pronounced a name incorrectly. I did ask for a little grace because I had about 100 names to learn, but I also made sure that they knew I would be upset if I found out I had been saying their name wrong for three months. It’s not that hard. I would write down the pronunciation and ask if it was correct, and then tell them to remind me if I got it wrong."

u/ysobel14 said, "Making up a name for you instead of saying your perfectly easy-to-learn name is an example of a microaggression. Well done though!" Similarly, u/42petrichor commented, "Well done, energy matched. I firmly believe the BARE MINIMUM of human behavior demands using a person's actual name. (And/or the name they ask you to use.) No name is too difficult; it’s LITERALLY another human being's identity."

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