It's not a very common spelling as you know. I'm named after my mom's best friends (from when she was a teen) little sister. I was a tour guide for five years at a pulp mill and met about 2000 people per summer (about 10 000 total) and one person that came through had the same spelling as me. So I only know of 2 other people. I wonder if the teacher you know was my tour guide guest, most of our guests were from the states and a lot from Washington.