Name Slips vs Name Stickers: What's the Difference, and Which Size Goes Where

What is a name slip?

In Indian schools, a name slip is the label on the front cover of a notebook or textbook. It is bigger than a sticker because it carries more information: the child's name, class, section, subject and sometimes the school name or roll number. Teachers collect forty copies on a Monday and need to sort them by subject without opening a single one, which is why the slip sits on the front, not the spine.

Our name slips are book labels that measure 7 x 5 cm and come 12 to a pack for Rs 329, printed with your child's name and a design they pick. That size fits the front of a standard school notebook and a textbook cover without hiding the title. If you are labelling a full set of books for the first time, our step-by-step guide on name slips for school books walks through covering, placing and writing them.

What is a name sticker?

A name sticker is the small label that goes on everything that is not a book. It usually carries just the name, sometimes with a small picture so a child who cannot read yet still knows their own bottle. It has to survive things a notebook never sees: a tiffin rinsed every evening, a bottle rolling around a school bus, a pencil sharpened down to a stub.

That is why name stickers come in a few shapes. Our waterproof ones are 7 x 2 cm, 40 to a pack, for Rs 329. The transparent embossed ones are 3 x 3 cm or 3 x 3.5 cm, 8 to a pack, for Rs 333, and sit on small things without hiding the design. Clothes stickers are 5 x 1.5 cm, 40 to a pack, for Rs 349, and are ironed on inside a uniform.

Name slips are for things the teacher sorts. Name stickers are for things your child loses.

Name slips vs name stickers at a glance

Here is the whole difference in one table, worth a screenshot before the next school-supply run.

Which size goes where: the item-by-item list

Here is how we thought about it when we sat down with a typical Class 2 school list. We sorted every item by one question: does a teacher need to read more than a name on it? If yes, it gets a slip. If no, it gets a sticker, and the sticker size depends on how much flat space the item has.

• Notebooks and copies: name slip, 7 x 5 cm, on the front cover in the lower half.
• Textbooks and workbooks: name slip, 7 x 5 cm. Put it on the brown cover if you cover books, not on the printed cover underneath.
• Water bottle: waterproof sticker, 7 x 2 cm, wrapped around the flat part of the body, not the curve near the cap.
• Tiffin and lunch bag: waterproof sticker, 7 x 2 cm, on the lid and on the box, because lids travel without boxes.
• Pencil box, crayons, eraser case: transparent sticker, 3 x 3 cm. A long strip will not fit a crayon box lid.
• Uniform, sweater, cap: clothes sticker, 5 x 1.5 cm, inside the collar or near the wash-care tag.

The thing nobody mentions: a name slip on a notebook is read at arm's length by a teacher, while a sticker on a bottle is read by a six-year-old searching a shelf. That is why we would always pick a picture design for younger kids' stickers. Honestly, the dinosaur or the unicorn does more work than the name for a child in Nursery or KG.

Can one label do both jobs?

Sometimes. A waterproof sticker will stay on a notebook, and a name slip will stay on a flat steel tiffin lid. But each one is a poor fit for the other's job. A 7 x 2 cm strip has no room for class and subject, and teachers in many schools ask for both. A 7 x 5 cm slip is too large for a bottle's curve and starts lifting at the edges.

If you want one order that covers both, the label combos mix slips and stickers in one box. One of the pre-schooler combos, for example, has 8 transparent stickers, 24 book labels at 7 x 5 cm and a silicone bag tag for Rs 899. For smaller hands, the mixed transparent pack of 14 (Rs 399) has 6 compact labels, 2 larger fun labels and 6 mini labels at 3 x 0.5 cm, sized for pencils.

Our picks for a first school kit

These four cover a full school bag between them. All four were in stock when we wrote this.

Personalised labels take 8 to 12 working days to reach you, so order a couple of weeks before school reopens. Orders above Rs 399 ship free across India.

How many of each do you need?

For most primary school kids, one pack of 12 name slips covers the notebooks and textbooks of one term, and one pack of 40 waterproof stickers covers bottles, tiffins and stationery with spares for the replacements that always come mid-year. If you want the full count by class, our post on how many name stickers a school kid needs works it out item by item. And if you are still choosing a design, this guide to picking name stickers for kids compares the types side by side.