What’s In a Name?
As Jack Thompson used to say in the ad for ‘Claytons’ in the 70s … “now we can all get some sleep.” Not only are we done and dusted with Federal elections for a while (he writes with fingers crossed), but the royal baby is finally with us, named, posted on Instagram and ready for duty. Archie.
In our minds, the first of our three kids was always going to be a boy. We didn’t find out, but we were convinced. We really only had a boy name, so we were in strife if he didn’t pop out with, well, you know. Then the same for our second. We were blissfully unaware of her sex, but she was named as a girl from pretty early on. Again, not sure what we’d have done if she were a boy! Then with number three we’d drawn an absolute blank. We would lie awake at night blurting out names that appealed, only to get a raspberry or even worse from the other partner as we voiced disapproval at each suggestion. Then after weeks of this unsuccessful to-ing and fro-ing, and again not knowing if it were to be blue or pink, one of us blurted out ‘Oscar’ … silence instead of negativity from the other partner signalled some sort of approval, and the rest is history.
I wonder if that’s how it goes with the Royals? Methinks not. The pressure to pick traditional names from those higher above has obviously been huge for hundreds of years, with just about everyone except Fergie, what a surprise, following regal protocol and using majestic-kind-of names. I’d love to think the new generation of Royalty laid awake in bed for months coming up with the name Archie. There’s sure to be some nobles who are quite offended by the choice, but around our dinner table we assumed that Harry and Meghan were going to do something different. Not necessarily different just to be oppositional, but from the day they started dating, the kingly world was never going to be the same.
My youngest (yep, the one we named Oscar) had his money on Arthur, which had the odds of being picked at 8-1. Most of the picks by the bookies were straight from the imperial playbook, but those tote-bag wags also had a market for names like Donald (as if) at 250-1, Boris at similar odds, and the good ol’ Aussie staple of Kevin at the cash-cow odds of over 300-1. Archie was a bit of an outsider at odds in some circles upwards of 40-1. Good luck to you if you put a fiver on that.
Even though he ended up being a week overdue, I was kind-of hoping he’d hang on for another week, as the distraction of an impending royal birth was doing it’s best to overshadow the politics and stupid TV ads on many an occasion over the past few months. After waking up to the news that baby Archie had entered the world, my brain was singing the theme to the 70s TV cartoon series for all of the rest of the day. Remember … “Archie’s here, Betty’s here, Veronica too … Hey Jughead, where are you? ♫” Not sure if that happens in your head, but I was glad for the space between my ears being occupied by something other than the tunes Clive Palmer ruined and stole to play in his ads.
Cool name, Archie. As you know, I’m not much of a Monarchist, but these guys are OK. I hope we see the little guy wearing a cartoon Archie t-shirt soon, that’d be very clever.