Cultivating preservice teachers’ critical love via exploration of names

Names are deeply intertwined with identity, carrying cultural, linguistic, and familial significance. Grounded in Sealey-Ruiz’s concept of critical love, this study explores a naming project designed for predominantly white preservice teachers at a rural U.S. institution in the Appalachian Highlands. Drawing on Hammond’s culture tree framework and Bishop’s metaphor of books as mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors, the project moved beyond surface-level cultural awareness to interrogate how names reflect belonging and exclusion. Findings revealed that many preservice teachers engaged with their own naming histories. Reading and discussing multicultural children’s literature catalysed their deeper reflection. They grappled with the emotional weight of name mispronunciations, anglicization, and erasure, recognising how these experiences shape their prospective young students’ sense of self. This study highlights the need for teacher preparation programmes to integrate culturally sustaining pedagogies that cultivate linguistic responsiveness and critical love, ensuring that future educators affirm students’ full identities.