As Ursuline welcomes the first visiting sister school of the year, not one, but two, pairs of name-sharing girls from Stella Matutina Girl’s High School in Taiwan have set foot on campus.
Cindy Chen, 15, and Cindy Liu, 15, both bear the same first name. Their respective hosts are Jamie Lin ’19 and Justine Walker’ 20.
Joyce Yang, 15, and Joyce Chiu, 16, are also a name-twinning duo. Coincidentally, the Joyces’ Ursuline hosts also claim name-twin status, Grace Olden ’21 and Grace (Gracie) Finegan ’19.
“It’s kind of funny because [Yang] is younger and it happened by chance,” said Chiu.
“Every time the teacher calls our names I cannot tell which Cindy the teacher is talking to. I also had another classmate in elementary school who was named Cindy,” said Liu.
“When I was in kindergarten, my name was Cindy, but then I had a classmate named Tiffany and I thought that was a great name, so I changed it by myself. Then when I was 13, I renamed myself Cindy because I thought writing the two f’s in Tiffany looked unpleasant…I like Tiffany better [now] but everyone [still] calls me Cindy,” said Chen.
Names seem to be where the similarities stop, though, as the girls have had experiences ranging from wake-surfing to shopping at Trader Joe’s. Momentary confusion is but a fraction of their busy days.
