Inside Joke

Prince Rolf — One of my favorite college professors had a young son named Rolf. I thought it was such a cool name, and he was a really fun kid. I’ve been looking for an excuse to use the name Rolf for years.

Rufus — Rufus is Princess Celie’s stuffed animal, for those who haven’t read the book. When we found out our first child was going to be a boy, my husband and I could not come up with any names. I kind of liked the name Max, but we were also joking around with a lot of names we would never actually use like Gunnar or Thorbjorn or Rufus. Somehow we ended up calling the baby Max Rufus (this did not end up being anything close to his real name). Our families and neighbors got into it, and for the last few months of my pregnancy, everyone who knew us would ask about “Max Rufus.” When I had a baby shower, of course everyone was saying the name over and over, every time we did, my friend’s baby girl would perk up, and then get sad. My friend finally told me that her daughter’s favorite toy was a stuffed giraffe they had named Rufus, and she had forgotten it that day. So whenever we said the name, poor little Luci looked around for her toy, and couldn’t find him. And so, in honor of Max Rufus and Luci’s Rufus, we have a stuffed lion named Rufus!