All in a Name: Give Me an A!
Maybe the quickest way to get to the front of the alphabet is to have a name that starts with an A. Of course, for some students, that’s not enough. Two students at Armijo have names that start with an A followed by an apostrophe. That makes it come before even someone named Aaron in the alphabetical listing of first names.
A’Lena Sessoms said that nobody has ever made any snide comments about her unusual name. “Seems insensitive,” she said. As a future officer for the Class of 2021, she is very focused. She has already been active in JV football and participates in dance and performing arts. Music is important to her. “Lyrics mean more than genres,” she said. She can imagine going to UC Davis after she graduates in three years and eventually she plans to become either a pediatric surgeon, psychologist or a regular pediatrician.
A’sjeah Richardson goes by the nickname AJ. “People don’t really joke about [my name]. They just ask why it’s like that,” he said. Richardson is a second-generation Armijo student since his uncles and aunts also attended, “but they don’t really have unusual names.” He plays AAU travel basketball and is hoping to play for Armijo in the future. Another vision of Richardson’s future is a four-year university. “I do plan to go but I don’t really know where,” he said. If he had his choice of a last name besides Richardson, he said, “I think it would be Iscool, so when people say my name, they would say A’sjeah Iscool.”
These students may seem rather different, but there’s something they both have in common. In their grade, on an alphabetical list of first names, they are both A-1.
