i think back a lot — and mind you this still happens A LOT — to grade school when teachers would call roll. everyone would get their single name called - “John,” “Alex,” “Brenda,” “Lauren,” etc.

i was ALWAYS called “Sarah Kaitlyn” or even worse “Sarah Jackson”

now, you might be thinking “duh, Sarah Kaitlyn is your name” or “they said Jackson because there were multiple Sarahs in the class” and you’d be wrong about both of those things

technically kaitlyn on rosters and roll sheets is my middle name, how many teachers do you know call out first and middle names during roll? also, i never had classes in grade school with multiple Sarahs (shocking, i know), so why differentiate?

as a child who picks up patterns super quickly, do you understand damaging it was to my psyche to be the only one singled out by full name?? to this day, when someone speaks my full name, i get wary.

because i’d read Percy Jackson and i KNEW what it meant when people weren’t afraid to speak your full name