What's in a Name?

Our Stake just started doing an adult institute class on Thursdays. The teacher is a former CES teacher, having taught seminary and such. Ashton saw it on the program this past Sunday and immediately asked if I had any interest. Well, when Ashton is interested enough to point it out to me and ask, it means that he really wants to do it. I thought that it could be a really good idea, so we made plans to go this week.

I'm not sure what I was expecting, but we got a few surprises last night. We met the teacher out in the hallway as we were walking to the Relief Society room in the Stake Center. He introduced himself and asked what our names were. Now, he's an older man, probably in his 60's, or around there, so he repeated our names to make sure he heard them right. Well, Ashton said his name first and no problem there. Then came my turn. He repeated my name and I confirmed it. He looked slightly confused/surprised (not a name you normally hear) and asked me to spell my name. He repeated my name again after I spelled it. This is fairly typical of me introducing myself.

When we walked into the Relief Society room of our Stake Center, we saw that the room was full of older people, mostly women. (By older I mean there were a few probably in there 40's-50's and quite a few in there 60's-70's.)It kind of felt weird to be the youngest couple there. There was another sister there who was also younger, and another couple or two walked in, but for those few minutes, it felt slightly weird. Not in a bad way, just a little odd as I was expecting a few more younger couples since our stake is mostly comprised of younger couples. It made the dynamic of the class so funny though. Older people have such interesting insights.

Anyways, we found some seats right in the front and sat down. Then the class started and the teacher had those who were new introduce themselves (the class started last week, so some of the people there had attended before). Well, he came to us and he was standing right in front of us and when it came my turn, he told the class, "Now she's going to tell you her name and you have to remember it." He said this while putting his hand on my head and turning my head around for everyone to see my face. So, I said my name and immediately there was a general murmur of people repeating my name and some people saying how pretty it was and that they liked that. The teacher also repeated my name, trying to remember how to say it, and asked me if I went by "Z." I kinda laughed, a little surprised, and said that I have gone by "Z" before so, that was fine (Ashton was definitely getting a kick out of this, by the way). Well, that was that, or so I thought.

Then came time to read. We were taking turns reading verses and it came down to my turn, but this time the teacher called me, "Z," repeated my actual name, and then must have had a light bulb come on because then he said, "Hey! I can call you Zorro!" He sounded so happy to have made that connection. I couldn't help but laugh and then start reading. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I'd prefer any other nickname to Zorro. Ashton definitely thought it was funny because he laughed quietly to himself and nudged me.

After the class was over, and as we were leaving, I asked Ashton how many nicknames he thought I could acquire during this class. I'm thinking of keeping a running tally.