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de-force performance of my colleague,Josephine Capuana, AdministrativeDirector of the Honors Program. Sheread the names of 350 honors stu-dents—flawlessly. That may not seemtoo impressive, but impressive it is.

Our university, like so many pub-lic institutions of higher learning, hasa spectacularly diverse student body.Dozens of different countries and cul-tures are represented in each graduat-ing class. To read the names of studentsfrom Thailand, India, Poland, Greece,China, Korea, Chile, and a host of othernations flawlessly is no mean feat.

But I know how she does it. First,she calls all of the students whosenames are unfamiliar to her and asksthem for the correct pronunciation. Shewrites their names phonetically on cuecards. Her first secret, then, is to careenough to get the names right.

Her second secret is confidence.She says the students’ names with suchverve and joie de vie that even if shegets it wrong, the parents are convincedthat they are hearing their names pro-

nounced correctly—if only for thefirst time!

Names are vital. Adam’s firsttask after his naked appearance inthe Garden of Eden was to get towork naming the beasts aroundhim. Naming things needs to bedone if we are to put our world inorder. Names allow us to commu-nicate with other folks. Taxono-mists know this. They are theCPAs of the scientif ic world.They keep our world organized,tidy, categorized—and familiar.

Carolus Linneaus, a peripa-tetic Swede from Uppsala Uni-versity, made the world of plantsand animals a safe place to visitwhen he came up with the Bi-nomial System of Nomencla-ture to which all students there-after had to pay homage if theywere to pass General Biology.Before his enlightening work,the terminology of Adam’sworld was a bewildering arrayof names for God’s biologicalhandiwork. Scientists had a devil of atime figuring out whether a potatoshould be called a “papa” or a “pommede terre” or a “dirt tuber.” Our Swedesolved it and said it is Solanum tubero-sum no matter where you are.

Latin is the thing—no one uses itanymore; it is a stable language; it’snot going to change. So use Latin toname the organisms of the planet. Andwhile you are at it, give your tuber twonames so that it shows its ancestralconnections. Like the names for hu-

man beings. Most of us have at leasttwo names (except for personages ofthe likes of Cher and Madonna).Names reveal to us family connec-tions. Some of us even have three ormore names, like I do. My first nameis a given name; my middle namecomes from my grandmother’s maidenname, and my last name is from myfather’s side of the family, comingthrough untold generations of Norwe-gian farmers. We all can tell similartales. It isn’t surprising that Linneaus

I attended our honors graduation cer-emony in early May. Then, as eachyear before, I was struck by the tour-

Naming NamesThe Greatest Secret in Leading a Discussionis Using Students’ Names

Clyde Freeman Herreid

Clyde Herreid is a Distinguished Teach-ing Professor, department of biologicalsciences, University at Buffalo, State Uni-versity of New York, Buffalo, NY 14260ñ1300 and the Director of the NationalCenter for Case Study Teaching in Sci-ence (ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/projects/cases/case.html); e-mail: herreid@acsu.buffalo.edu.

Copyright © 2002, National Science Teachers Association (NSTA). Reprinted with permission from Journal of College Science Teaching, Vol. 32, No. 3, Nov 2002.

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VOLUME XXXII, NUMBER 3 163

felt that the scientific name must dothe same thing, and so it is that ourpotato’s species name (tuberosum) isequivalent to our given name and thegenus name (Solanum) is equivalent toour family name.

Names do more than allow us topigeonhole things and give us relation-ships. They give us a sense of ownership.Once we put a name to things we get asense that we understand somethingabout the essence of the thing itself. Thismay be entirely wrong, but nonethelesswe feel secure that our world is moreorderly. And we can go on.

There is more to it, argue somephilosophers and psychologists. Theysay that it is difficult to think aboutthings if they do not have names.Indeed, language and nouns set theframework for our analytical pro-cesses. Hobbes put it, “We cannotthink about things but only about thenames of things.”

The naming of a child is no trivialmatter. We name our kids after saints,heroes, and ancestors in hopes thatthey will receive some of the virtuesor wealth of the individual whose nameis used. And using the name can leadto magical and dangerous results. Con-sider the plight of Rumplestiltskin,who was doing just fine in the Ger-man folklore tale until his captivemaiden discovered his name andgained her release.

Name taboos exist in many cul-tures. The Kiowa Indians say you can-not utter the word “bear” unless you arenamed for the bear. Otherwise you willbe driven mad. One must be especiallycareful dealing with the names of godsand demons—or before you know it,they may be at your doorstep demand-ing your soul or more mundane things,like your life. Indeed, using names isno trivial matter.

Dale Carnegie was passionateabout names. His famous book, Howto Win Friends and Influence People,and his training seminars emphasizethe importance of learning and usingnames to become a paragon of suc-cess. Perhaps the greatest key to fameand fortune is to remember a person’sname. Who doesn’t feel flatteredwhen someone recalls their name?

This is especially true if the personwho remembers us is someone in au-thority. “He recognizes me. I must beimportant,” runs our inner dialogue.This recognition reaffirms our exist-ence, our value. Nothing is more per-sonal than our names.

So perhaps we can understand thepersonal hurt and insult that can occurwhen someone mispronounces, orworse, misprints our name—there ishardly a greater sin. Harry Houdini, therenowned escape artist of the early 20thcentury, said he didn’t care what thenewspapers printed about him—be itgood or ill—as long as they spelled hisname correctly. That’s what mattered.

The point of this essay is simple.Learn your students’ names. Use themconstantly. This will repay you a thou-sandfold in relationships with students.No longer can students hide in the ano-nymity of the classroom. They willstart to behave more like responsiblecitizens than the children we are soused to seeing, being irresponsible andwhining and behaving—well—likestudents! A Swedish colleague ofmine, Arne Tarnvik, professor at UmeaUniversity, has put it well. He said thatusing students’ names is the most cost-effective way of getting a good discus-sion started and to keep it going. Callon students by name. Use those nameswhenever possible. No longer will thegroup be composed of strangers; if notfriends, they will become at least col-leagues together on a quest.

How many of us have suffered thisignoble fate in our classrooms? We aska question and get no response? Stu-dents avert their eyes and start writingfuriously on their papers. We wait invain for someone to say something in-telligent. If not intelligent, at leastsomething. Anything. We give up. Andstart lecturing again. Surely, not manyamong us have not sweated through this

scenario. There are several ways to sur-vive this embarrassment, but undoubt-edly, the simplest is to use students’names. They can hardly not respond ifyou call on them by name.

There are many ways to do this.But f irst you must f ind out theirnames. You know the ways. Use as-signed seating and seating charts. Usenametags stuck to their bodies or ontheir desks. Take snapshots in one ofthe first class periods and learn who’swho. Whatever you do, devise somesystem to get the job done.

This is the way I handle it. If I amin a class or workshop with say 40people, I have them each write theirname down on an index card in boldletters using a felt tip marker. This cardis folded lengthwise and placed on theirdesk with their name facing me. It isuseful to have them write their name onthe other side as well if there are peopleseated to their side or behind them. Thenext step is to use their names con-stantly. Whenever I ask a question, Idirect that question to a person and usetheir name. “Anna, what do you thinkabout the suggestion that Bill justmade?” “Does anyone have a differentviewpoint than Jessica’s?” “Frank, willyou expand on that idea.” And so on.

Use names repeatedly, and in thecourse of a 50-minute class, you canlearn 20 to 40 names. Just as impor-tantly, students will begin to use eachother’s names as well. This sets the stagefor a good class discussion.

It won’t solve all of your problemsin getting students engaged in an in-telligent case discussion. But it will goa long way. You will still have to bebrilliant yourself. You will still have togive engaging assignments. You willstill have students that will not prepare.But there will be fewer of them—theycan no longer hide. Because you knowtheir names!

A name pronounced is the recognition of the individual to

whom it belongs. He who can pronounce my name alright, he

can call me, and is entitled to my love and service.

Henry David Thoreau

Copyright © 2002, National Science Teachers Association (NSTA). Reprinted with permission from Journal of College Science Teaching, Vol. 32, No. 3, Nov 2002.