Cameo Fic Challenge: What's in a Name?
By Saskia
Clark flopped down on the couch with a book of baby names in his hands. Lois was finally pregnant, it was like a dream come true. The best thing was, they were expecting twins. So far everything went fine, but now it was time to start thinking about names. This was proving to be much more difficult. Every name that either of them had suggested was rejected by the other.
Today they would finally decide on the names. All they had to do was agree, and with the book to help them, it should pay off.
They just needed to choose a boy's and a girl's name. As soon as it was possible, they found out about the gender of their babies. Lois was just too curious to wait until their twins were actually born to find out. It should make picking names a bit easier. They would start with the girl's name. For the boy's name, they were much closer to a compromise already. It would either be Jeff, Tank, Paul, Phil or Roger. His choice would be Tank, that name had something he liked.
Clark opened the book and started reading some names. “What do you think of Bethy, sweetheart?” Clark asked Lois as she returned from the kitchen.
“Huh? What did you say Clark?”
“I said, what do you think of the name Bethy?” Clark asked again.
A thoughtful look came over Lois’s face as she let the name register with her brains and pondered about why it sounded so familiar. “I don’t know Clark. It doesn’t sound right to me. I'm not sure, but I think I know someone with that name. So just to be on the safe side, I think we should go for another name. So what’s your next suggestion?”
Clark couldn’t help but smile at his wife. He’d never expected her to agree with the first name his eyes fell onto, so he wasn’t one bit surprised at her answer. He pointed at the empty seat on the couch beside him, indicating she should come sit next to him. After she had found a good spot and was relaxing next to him while giving him an encouraging smile to continue, Clark focused on his book again. He quickly flipped through the pages, occasionally mentioning a name, just to hear the sound of it and to see Lois’s reaction to it.
“How about Irene?”
One look at her face showed him the answer was a definite ‘no.’ “Okay, not good. How about,” Clark paused a moment to find another name he liked, “Jenni?”
“Jenni?” Lois exclaimed. “That sounds a bit old fashioned to me. Maybe if it were Jen?"
They looked at each other and shook their head simultaneously.
It just didn't have the right sound for Clark, and obviously, Lois felt the same.
“Okay, Kathy then?”
“Oh, now there’s a name I like. Wait, no, that’s the name of one of my mother’s friends. That won’t please Mother,” Lois replied.
Clark slowly made his way through the book, thinking it could take them some long hours before they’d actually have those two names. Sometimes he found the weirdest names, like Hazel. Even with all his travels, he'd never seen that name before. It sounded more like a flower. And then there was that other name that he really couldn't place.
"Look at this, Lois, who would ever call their child that? I mean, I'm not even sure how to pronounce that."
Lois took a look at the name Clark pointed out. 'Kaëthel.' "Something like Kee, no Kaa," Lois tried. "Oh, look at that first e, honey. I think it should be Kaa-eh-tel, or something close to that."
"Yeah, it looks like it. Geez, who would give their child a name like that? Imagine all the bizarre looks we'd get when we tell our parents and friends that name."
Lois started to laugh as she imagined her mother's face. Ellen would think that Lois had lost her mind or was an alcoholic after all. No, that wasn't a good idea. During her pregnancy, the last thing she needed was her mother's interference. They just needed a normal name they both liked and that would suit any child of theirs.
"We can go for a typical American name like Missy, Tracey, Pam or Trenna," Clark said.
Lois gave it a little thought. The names sounded more like something Lucy would call her children, if she ever got to that point. But Clark sounded enthusiastic about it, and she didn't want to let him down. This whole thing was difficult enough already. Suddenly, she felt inspired.
"I don't know Clark. Maybe something more Mediterranean, like Spanish or Italian. I've always liked the sound of names like that," Lois replied.
"And then I should see you drool every time you see our boy with the name Jose because he reminds you of that cute waiter in Barcelona?" Clark joked.
"Clark!" Lois looked shocked at Clark's remark. He knew she only had eyes for him; just because that waiter had been hitting on her was no reason he had to tease her with it at every opportunity he got.
"All right, all right," Clark said, still laughing about Lois's reaction. "What comes to my mind is Maria, Elena, Chiara and Cristina."
Lois quickly thought them over. "The last one sounds nice, but it's missing something extra. How about Christiane? And then in short it's Chris."
"I know Chris can be a very nice girl's name," Clark answered after a few moments. "But I've always seen it more as a boy's name."
"Yeah, there is that. Okay, so what else?"
"You know I've been traveling around the world for some years. I've heard some nice names there. We could go for one of those?" Clark offered.
"Let's hear what you've got then," Lois couldn't help but wonder what that would be. Knowing Clark, it could be some very silly names, but she was willing to listen at what Clark came up with.
"Okay, what do you think of Helga?" Clark started.
Lois pulled a face before she said: "One of my dad's girlfriends had that name."
"Tineke?"
"A little bit more English wouldn't hurt, sweetheart."
"Ursie then?"
"Doesn't sound too English to me yet."
"Loriel?"
"That sounds a lot like Ariel, you know, that mermaid from the Disney movie." Lois started giggling again. "Only thing is, I never liked those movies."
"Robin?"
"Like the Boy Wonder from Batman? Or the flying boy who never wanted to grow up? Bad references, honey."
"True, but I'm running out of names now. Maybe you should take the book for a while and see if you find anything fancy." And with that, he handed the book to Lois.
She immediately settled herself comfortably on the couch. A few pillows propped up on her back, she pulled her knees up to create a good place to hold the book up without making her arms sore.
"All right, let me see..." Lois flipped through the book, starting at the back. "How do you feel about," she paused for a moment to look at the page, "Wendy?"
Clark shuddered when he heard that name; it brought a memory back he'd rather not be thinking about. "We will not call our daughter Wendy, honey. I had a professor at University with that name, and I never liked her. She was never really impressed with what I handed in and my grades weren't that good either. She just disliked me, I guess that sometimes happens."
"Oh, Clark, I'm sorry to hear that. Nope, no Wendy for our baby then. How about Vicki instead?" Lois continued.
The look in Clark's eyes made her understand that wasn't the right name either. "Never mind, Clark. Is Tricia any better?"
"Tricia." Clark repeated the word to hear the sound of the name. He liked how it sounded. "I think we can keep that in the back of our minds for a while, it sounds okay right now."
"Okay." Lois turned a few more pages and quickly glanced at the names she saw. "Oh, here's a name I like. Sarah."
"I don't think so, in fact, I'm pretty sure, one of Lana's friends back in Smallville was called Sara too. I take it you don't want anything related to Lana," Clark answered.
"That's right, my one encounter with Lana wasn't too good, considering it was even in another universe. But I'm getting a bit thirsty. Could you get me something to drink?"
"Sure, I'll be right back," and Clark walked off to the kitchen, taking his time to fix the drink for Lois. He could use one too, and while he was in the kitchen, he could also get them a little snack.
In the meantime, Lois took the book back up again and started looking for other names. She saw lots of names as she skimmed through it, and a lot of those names she could never see herself giving to any child of hers. But there were other names she really liked.
She saw names like Meredith and Jill. That was not bad at all. Although she was sort of fond of one syllable names like Clark. Then Jill would be a bit better. Come to think of it, Barb was a nice name with one syllable too. It sounded very poetic as well. Or something even shorter, like... She quickly flipped a few pages again, there it was. Jo. Short and to the point. Couldn't get better. On the other hand, Jo was a name kids could pick on and start making fun of her daughter. She couldn't let that happen.
Also, one syllable names weren't very common these days. Perhaps two syllables then.
Lois sighed. Who knew it could be so frustrating to pick out a name for your child? She had thought it would go a lot faster. But suddenly, she found herself thinking of all these little things they should be aware of. Nothing but the best name for her babies.
They weren't labrats their parents just gave a name to every other month.
She focused her eyes back on the book and looked for two syllable names. Kaylle, Marnie, Laura, Katie, Carole, Rivka. Okay, scratch that. Rivka could be one of those names why her child could be picked on by others.
Suddenly, Lois held the pages still. Her eyes had found a beautiful name. Karen. She let out a contented sigh. What a wonderful name. Oh no, wasn't Jimmy's latest girlfriend, who was also good with computers, called that? Yeah, she remembered that right.
More names came by her eyes as she turned page by page. Alicia, Carol, Emily, Erin, Jana, Merry, Laurie, Nan, Sira, Yvonne. She just didn't know it anymore.
Right then, Clark came back with the drinks and some food. Before she accepted her drink, she put the book down on the table. She gladly took her cream soda from Clark and took a careful sip.
She was aware of her husband staring at her. One look at his face showed her he was thinking about the names as well, equally frustrated. So neither of them had come up with a good name so far.
A genius idea hit her then. Popular names! Always good with other kids. So she was the first to break the silence. "We could always take something popular, like Anne, or Anna. Maybe even Anni or Annie. Or if you like it a bit longer, it can be Annette."
Clark's response followed immediately, feeling almost offended. "Oh no, nothing too popular! I mean, with my other persona I'm popular enough for the entire family for years to come. But Annette sounds nice, it's less common."
"Isn't that new girl in research called Annette? You know, the one that's rebuilding the Planet site?"
"Yeah, I believe so."
"Well, we don't want people to think we named our baby after her, so we need to come up with something else."
Clark rolled his eyes. What could that something possible be? "I thought we have gone through all the names I like, as well as yours. So what do we do now?"
Clark really didn't know what to do now. They'd been working through this for hours, and every time one of them mentioned a name they liked, the other wouldn't like it or knew someone with the name or had bad memories with the name. Or there was another reason. It just wasn’t working out at all. And they were talking about the names of their babies, after all!
Lois was the first to speak again after a few moment of silence. "We could go back to our original idea."
Clark agreed, in the end, it really sounded like their best option. And the names weren't bad at all, on the contrary. He liked them a lot, actually. And so did Lois when they first mentioned them. It wasn't like calling your kids 'muts' and 'doos.' No, this was close to their real life and all the people surrounding them. Both their parents would be thrilled with those names. A soft sigh escaped him, while he started to picture the future with his twins. And with the names that would really suit them, everything would be just perfect.
Suddenly, Clark became aware of the annoyed look Lois gave him and he remembered he still owed her an answer. "Yeah, that's our best shot. And I actually like those names," Clark finally told Lois.
"Okay, so it will be Martha Ellen and Samuel Jonathan."
The End
Author's Note: This is my response to the cameo fic challenge Hazel issued back in May. It took me quite some time, but I finally wrote down the idea I had. I hope you enjoyed reading it. And there's no offence meant with the use of the names, it's intended for mere fun.
I don't own the chararcers of Lois and Clark, no infringement is intended on them. The rest of the story belongs to me.
A special thanks goes to my Beta Readers: Anne, Carole, Jana and RetroRose. I couldn't have done it without you guys! And another thank you to all the people who helped me out on IRC, much appriciated guys!
Any and all feedback is welcome.
