It’s the first day of my freshman year. I’m nervous about everything— who will I talk to? What if I can’t find my classes? How will I remember my locker combination? It didn’t even cross my mind that what I needed to worry about was my first hour teacher.

I walk into my first hour class and look around. I notice familiar faces mixed in a room of unfamiliar faces. I sit in my seat and wait for class to begin. The teacher goes around the room one by one taking roll call. Matching names. The teacher finally gets to me. She looks down at the paper, up at me, and back to the paper.

“Jordyn? Do we have a Jordyn in here?” she asks.

I shyly raise my hand. The teacher looks at me, gives me a confused look and says, “I’m sorry, I was expecting a boy. I’m so used to Jordyn being a boy’s name.”

My unfamiliar classmates let out chuckles. I begin to slouch in my chair from embarrassment. As I was thinking of everything that could go wrong that day, I didn’t even think that a teacher could cause me so much trouble. This bothered me so much because I didn’t want to be thought of as the girl with a boy’s name. Freshman year is my chance to meet new people and my first impression to my teacher and my classmates is that I was going to be a boy.

This situation bothered me for the rest of the day. I was so dumbfounded that the teacher actually said that. Haven’t they ever heard that the female spelling of the name “Jordan” is “Jordyn”? As I walk to lunch, a girl from my first hour class approaches me.

“I really like your name, I think it’s unique and original,” said the girl.

After she said this, I start thinking again. I come to the conclusion that I agree with her and I like my name because it is unique and original.