The Name Jar is a Children's Picture Book by Yangshook Choi.
Unhei is a little girl whose family has recently moved to the United States from Korea just a week ago. On her way to her new school, a bunch of kids have trouble pronouncing her name, making her blush. Afraid something similar will happen with the other kids in her school, Unhei tells the kids in her class she hasn't picked a name yet, but will pick one next week. The next day, she sees a jar on her desk full of pieces of paper with names on them. Apparently the kids at Unhei's new school decided to help her out by giving her a bunch of names to choose from. Now Unhei has a whole bunch of names to go by for her new school. Which will she choose?
The book was published on October 14th, 2003.
The Name Jar contains examples of:
- Be Yourself: The main message of the book. In the end, the titular jar is filled with slips of paper, but every slip of paper has the same name on it: Unhei, implying that Unhei doesn't have to change herself or her cultural identity to be liked by her peers.
- Fixing the Game: Unhei's classmates rig the Name Jar by writing Unhei on each piece of paper.
- MacGuffin: The Name Jar, which the kids in Unhei's class give her to help her pick out a name.
- MacGuffin Title: "The Name Jar" refers to the titular jar full of names on Unhei's desk.
- Naturalized Name: Unhei has to pick a name from the Name Jar because the other kids have a hard time pronouncing her Korean name.
- New Transfer Student: Unhei is this at her new school in the United States.
- Personal Seals: Unhei has a small stamp in a pouch upon which her name is carved.
- Pronouncing My Name for You: Unhei tries to tell kids on the bus her name is pronounced "Yoon-hye".
