(Right before my ‘Intro to Cultural Anthropology’ final, we are quickly asking the teacher a few questions. To explain something, she starts pointing out various students’ shirts to highlight that different shades of blue are still considered blue. My middle name is what I’ve always been called, and happens to be a color.)

Professor: “And what color is his shirt?”

Class: “Blue.”

Professor: “And is that scarf turquoise or teal?”

Me: *to my neighbor who knows what my name is* “It’s definitely teal.”

Professor: “But we still consider that color more blue than green. *to me and my blue shirt* “And your shirt- sorry, what’s your name again?”

Me: “Teal.”

Professor: “No, your name, not your shirt color.”

Me: “It’s Teal.”

Professor: “Your name-”

Me: “That’s it. My name is Teal.”

(The professor looks a bit surprised before joining the class as we laugh.)

Professor: “Well, what color is Teal’s shirt?”

Class: “Blue.”

(Later the teacher said she definitely wouldn’t forget my name again, and I had to point out that with such a large class, I wrote my first name on my papers to match the system, so she wouldn’t have seen ‘Teal’ on anything anyway.)