What's your name?

It seems that every Thai person has a nickname of some sort. Sometimes their nickname is a Thai word, but more often than not (at least at ICS), it is an English word. We're not quite sure if it's because their Thai names are difficult to say or if it's just a cultural thing, but I will say that when we first arrived in Thailand, the nicknames sometimes they caught us off guard. Some of our current students are named the following: Bright, Ice, Pop, Candy, Sand, Land, Birdy, Meme, Naim (pronounced like Name), Twinkle, Binx (formerly known as Jar Jar Binx, but has decided to go by just Binx now), Annikan, Sea, Hill, Proud, Folk, Happy, Winnie, Pun, Perm, Cream, Deer, Ping, Pong, Tik, Guitar, Punky... and the list could go on...

Names don't really have shock value to us anymore; it seems pretty normal to us to have students with names such as these. In fact, when I was trying to think of names that might have a little shock value to my readers, I mentally went through my seating charts and thought several times, "But that's a pretty common name!" Needless to say, I've acclimated to my surroundings. :)

Mike has a little 4 year old student (Cream) who was telling him about her babies one day and how she likes to sleep with her babies (AKA: dolls). Mike asked her if her babies have names. To which she responded, "Cookie and Cream." Of course... a natural choice if you are from Thailand. So cute.

I wonder what a "Thai Baby (Nick)Names" book looks like!?!