When children come to school, they bring with them a common thread they all have their individual names. Children from minority cultures, however, often encounter difficulties for being different; one obvious difference can be their given names. Names that are unfamiliar to other children may cause social tension or ridicule when a teacher calls roll or introduces children at group or gathering time at the beginning of a school day. In addition, some minority students may have culture shock and others may not be motivated by the traditional curriculum that, it has been argued, does not always represent various cultures equally. Therefore, early childhood, elementary, or middle school teachers have the important task of creating an atmosphere that will encourage respect for each other and show that people are similar in more ways than they are different. Exploring similarities through classroom activities that show children that all children's names have different meanings, no matter what culture they are from, is a way for a teacher to fulfill this critical task. In this article, the authors describe some activities for name awareness.