What's in a name? Quite a bit when it comes to convocation ceremonies.

For many graduates, hearing their name read out loud in front of their families, peers and professors is the highlight of their college or university career.

That's why the University of Toronto hosts a yearly convocation bootcamp to help ensure the ceremony goes off with as few hiccups as possible. 

Two of the university's linguistic professors and the opera program’s stage director are involved in the bootcamp that aims to give each of the 15,000 or so names read during the ceremonies the delivery they deserve.

Names have become 'more challenging'

University of Toronto Professor Emeritus Elizabeth Cowper said the bootcamp came about as the names read aloud during convocation ceremonies have become more diverse.

"More than half of our students are not speakers of English at home, so reading everyone's names has become, in the past 50 years or so, much more interesting and much more challenging than it used to be," Cowper told CTV's Canada AM on Wednesday. "There are so many more ways we can get it wrong."

Bootcamps give name readers a practice run

Prior to the convocation ceremony, first-time name readers are invited to an hour-long session where they receive tips on pronunciation and pacing.

They're also given 20 to 30 names to read at the podium with no prior preparation.

"In its few seconds of being pronounced in the convocation hall, you want each name to have its weight and its moment," linguistic professor Christina Kramer said. "It might be wrong, but you're giving people the voice, the intonation patterns, the pacing and the spacing between names, so each name gets to ring out in the hall."

Mistakes will be made

Before the ceremony, graduates submit name cards that sometimes include tips on how to pronounce their names.

But Kramer says mistakes will happen regardless.

"It's important to remember that everybody's name is not going to be read correctly," she said. "Names come from all over the world. And names are not like common nouns that we can look up in the dictionary.

"The best you can do is give people guidelines to make a plausible and considered best guess."

Convocations are 'theatrical events'

Michael Albano, resident stage director of the opera program at the University of Toronto, described convocation as "very theatrical events."

His role at the bootcamp is to verse speakers on the "three Bs": breath, body language and be wrong with flair. 

Albano said during events such as weddings, the audience is often "much more forgiving" when speakers stumble their way through a speech.

However, he said there' a "formality" to convocations.

Albano said he advises speakers to watch the manner in which news broadcasters recover from mistakes on live TV.

"Watch how quickly they move on and don't make a huge thing of it," he said.

Albano said proper body language is also an important factor in the delivery of the names.

"Sometimes we give out, whether we mean it or not, that feeling that we don't want to be there," he said. "But we do want to be there."