The day after we brought “Roscoe” home, many names were bandied about. Cute names, funny names, doggy names, intellectual names, names of artists, show-offy names, aren’t we clever names.

Names, names and more names.

I was a fan of the name Jasper. Jaz, Jazzy, Jasper. It seemed like a nice, playful name. But no one else liked it. Hepcat liked Zebulon and Kubrick. OSFO kept changing her mind.

I thought Milo sounded cute. There’s a list somewhere of ALL the names. I wish I could find it. There must have been 60 names on the list.

I would read the names and we’d vote on each one. If a name got three votes it was still in the running. Very few names met this criteria. We were stumped. I thought we’d NEVER name our dog.

I kept calling him Jasper. He needed a name in the interim. Finally the name Stanley came up. It sounded like an elderly person. An old Jewish man. The first name of the director of The Shining, Clockwork Orange, Dr. Stranglove…

Stanley. It wasn’t too bad. Did it suit our adorable white terrier? Did we like saying the name over and over?

Stanley?