Jack (Dong, Gong, and Tong) of all trades

Courtesy of Nathan Liu

The three Jacks’ line up in height order (left to right: Jack Gong, Jack Dong and Jack Tong).

On the first day of sophomore year, Jack Tong stepped into English teacher Emily Wu’s 6th period. It soon became clear a hilarious and confusing dynamic had happened.

 There were three Jacks in the room: Jack Tong, Jack Dong and Jack Gong. The class erupted into laughter.

“Hearing my name being called out so much when I wasn’t being referred to was confusing at first,” Tong said. “But I’ve gotten used to it now, [since] I know that Jack is a pretty common name and I’ve known other people with my name before.” 

While Jack may be a fairly common name, it is still a remarkable coincidence that all three Jacks in the Class of ‘26 ended up in the same English class, out of the eight regular English 10 classes — and with rhyming last names. In addition, two of the Jacks also participate in the same extracurriculars.

“Jack Dong and I are on the same cross country team, so one of our teammates, Kyle, started collectively referring to us as Jack squared. It caught on and everyone started calling us that,” Tong said.

Other students with similar or identical names have been the victims of all manner of confusion, and sometimes common workarounds such as using someone’s middle name doesn’t even help. 

Take for instance, sophomores Nathan Jiacan Liu and Nathan Jingzhi Liu, who shared a 9th grade biology class and this year were in Chemistry Honors together. Nathan Jingzhi Liu recounted an instance of a biology grade mishap during freshman year. Both Nathans’ names are labeled as “Nathan J. Liu” on Aeries, so the system was setting all of one Nathan’s grades to the other. Biology teacher Lisa Cochrum had to call the office to change one of their names on Aeries into “Nate J. Liu” to fix the issue.

“I spent a whole month without having my grades, because I was waiting for the office to fix it. Now I go by Nate, so it’s fine,” he said.

The Class of ‘26 isn’t the only grade with students who share the same name. The Class of ‘25 includes two Aiden Chens. Aiden A. Chen is known for his endeavors in baseball and marching band, while Aiden M. Chen is known for his talent as an artist. 

Said Aiden M. Chen: “On numerous occasions, I would get letters from colleges, because the other Aiden is very good at baseball. There was also a mix up where Scholastic sent me another Aiden Chen’s (from another school) artwork.”

A. Chen recalled getting an email from M. Chen about this particular incident. The pair has had so many mishaps that M. Chen thought to ask even though A. Chen doesn’t normally do art.

“Aiden sent me an email asking me if I made a pencil drawing and I was like ‘I don’t think I did,’” A. Chen said. “Sometimes people refer to me as the fake Aiden, because my legal name isn’t actually Aiden, but it’s all fun and games. I love my name and I don’t mind sharing it with someone else.”