By any other name would smell as sweet…
In her recent post, Ren got me thinking, I promised to give you guys an answer to the poll, didn’t I? Well, it would appear that we have results. And 12 of you got it right. One of each.
So how about a name for each of these munchkins? We have a girl’s name, have had since we were having Bert. Look up, there tis; Kennedy. Not very common, nor very popular, just the way we like ‘em!
But then there was the quandry. A boy’s name. What the heck would we call a boy. With Albert, to us, we had the perfect set up. A family first name, a family second name, the same initials as Dada; perfect. One cool name, what will we call another boy? This was not in the plan. Mind, we never knew what we were having, let alone two of them, so we never really bothered going on about a boys name.
I always thought we’d never come up with anything and just go with my absolute fave; Jack. Say it out aloud - Jack Malloy. That’s the name of a footballer. A very cool name. But I couldn’t do that to a kid. I love love love Jack as a name, but it seems so does every other second household on the street. The poor kid would hear the name and wonder if it was him they were calling. I’ve never wanted to call any of my children by a name that some other kid would have in their classroom.
So, I borrowed a book. And I hunted. And while I hunted I shot names out aloud to hear them and for Tony to yay or veto them. Henry, George, Rufus, Harry, Tony, Spencer, Tucker, Hunter, Cooper, Elliott, Archie… Archie… Archie…
We got stuck on Archie. Thing is, after 3 days, I began to think too much about it and began to think it was too slang to be a real name. I wasn’t calling the poor thing Archibald (no offence to any Archibalds reading, but that one is even too old for me) so I thought it was back to the drawing board, ie book. But no. Tony was stuck on it. That was it, he said. No iffing and or butting.
I was at work, whinging to my boss how hard it was to come up with a name. We had some laughs. He told me how his kids got their names. We laughed some more. Then I mentioned Archie. Then I stretched it to Archer. He said I have a nephew Archer. I had a feeling some well known face had named their child Archer, but it rang well with me. It matched the middle name. It went well with the surname. I emailled the hubby. I emailled the brother. I SMSed the Mother. They were all positive responses.
So that’s it. Archer and Kennedy. Kennedy and Archer.
Thank heavens that hardest part of the decision making is over! Now it’s just “spend-lots-of-money” time. Bonus for us is good friends who no longer need their baby bits and pieces and are happy to give/lend them to us!
PS I have the approval of the hubby, brother, Mother, MIL, SIL. What do you think? Like them??
January 31st, 2007 at 10:18 pm
Whilst Kennedy has grown on me (rather like Phoenix has), Archer is a bit… “naaaaaaaaaah”. My head goes straight to characters out of Tolkien or in WoW. I’m picturing elves. Elves is not a good thing.
Archibald is very old school though, definitely agree with you there.
But at least you’re spelling it correctly. You could go the whole “Archah” , or Archar, or Ahcharr bit. Or stick a “y” in there somewhere. Really, people are doing that a lot, lately.
I like Harry. Harry Malloy. Has a nice ring to it. Might change my name to Malloy so I can have a Harry.
I’m still pissed that I can’t name any of my children Lee/Leigh, especially if I marry the manbeast.
Leigh King.
Not good.
Sorry for the ramble.
January 31st, 2007 at 10:19 pm
By the way, VERY awesome on the girl & boy thing. Very. Two of each! Perfect!
February 1st, 2007 at 7:26 am
Good strong names - Not that it really matters what we think. They are your children and you have to like the names. In the end names grow on people and no matter how you spell their names they/you will always get - How do you spell that?
Glad that you have the hardest part done - it really is quite a big decision.
Veronica
February 2nd, 2007 at 10:12 am
Good. Good good good names. Love Archer, love Kennedy.
Congrats on the equal allocation! At least they won’t be able to pull any swapsies tricks on you later on.
February 2nd, 2007 at 7:54 pm
I really like Archer, and I think Archie (if you do end up using a diminuitive) is very cute. Archer Malloy is a nice, strong, unusual but not bizarre name. Not that it matters, but a big thumbs up from me :-)
Like Ren, Kennedy is growing on me too. Archer and Kennedy are very nicely complementary twin names too, and that’s important. Phoebe, Albert, Kennedy, Archer. No-one could ever call your family commonplace!
February 8th, 2007 at 8:47 am
I reckon the names are great. Archer is from left field, but I think you’ve hit a bullseye with that one (groan).
And as for Lee/Leigh King, Ren, I would like to have a daughter and name her Skye. However, my own surname is Walker and my wife doesn’t think it is suitable. I sort of see her point, but I still like it.
We’ve got Patrick, Angus and Owen (in that order). After Patrick we’d spent our boy name. A friend of mine mentioned Angus and I thought ‘wow’, but my wife thought ‘ho-hum’. So I put it on the whiteboard on the front of the fridge and subliminally each time she went to fridge she was coming around! Noice.
March 27th, 2007 at 10:52 am
I know an ‘Archer’ and an ‘Archie’ [sic], and, by far, prefer Archer. So, I was very pleased on this random pop-in to see this discussion… Archer and Kenndey - v. nice!
March 27th, 2007 at 10:57 am
I can add to Ren’s Lee/Leigh King *groan* factor, as my man also has the surname ‘King’.
In drunken discussions with girlfriends before he and I had even had our first date, one of my nearest & dearest came out with the following taboos:
Joe (therefore, any male or female name that can be shortened as such, eg. Joseph, Josephine, Joanne/a, etc.)
Leigh/Lee
Wayne
Fay
Mark
…
there were others, and my gems to add were Burger & Donut (well, in my defence, we had been drinking…) :-)