There was an article in The Times about this “teachers’ pet and pest name chart”, in which teachers vote for names they associate with good or naughty pupils.* It quotes one teacher:

“I went through my new class list and mentally circled the ones I thought would be most difficult. I reckon I have a 75% hit rate.”

It would be sad, of course, to be a girl in the remaining 25%, somebody whose parents had an unfortunate idea to name her after a place, or a character in a soap, or give her a weird spelling.

It’s well-known that if you get into trouble accidentally on the first day of school, your reputation is then sealed: the teacher knows who you are, and that’s it for getting away with putting a toe out of line. Having a name your teacher is wary of is just like that, only crueller: you don’t even have to get into trouble that first time, they’re already keeping an eye on you.

It may be unfair, but it is, somehow, quite hot.

* The article is an exercise in unapologetic snobbery, but it gave me quite a laugh to see what they think the good girls are called, and to compare them with the class roster at Lowewood. I was a bit offended on behalf of all Daniels, though. It’s a Biblical name, for crying out loud, and not a weird one, either. There’re too many Daniels in the world for all of them to be naughty or nice.