Austin writes: How I Got My Name.

It has come to some people’s attention, after reading the about page of this blog, that I, Austin, do not have the same surname as the humans. My full name is Austin Moody-Murphy, which might sound stupid, but is not my fault.

Firstly, Toni is to blame. Back in the day before I was born, good old Toni was utterly and absolutely obsessed with a certain rugby player name Austin Healey.

<—– That’s him, there, in case you care. Toni, being totally rugby obsessed and totally Healey obsessed, decided that she’d call her new cat (that’d be me) Austin in an ode to the object of her affections. It got shorted to Oz, and that was me, born in July 2000 and named after a rugby player. (Note from Toni: and a very good rugby player, at that).

And you’d think, really, that that would be the end of it, wouldn’t you? That, when it came to me, she’d exhausted her naming-cats-after-rugby-players possibilities, don’t you? Had I not suffered enough? Well, no. She and Paul were chatting one day about how I was named after Austin Healey, and they jokingly said they were give me a surname also after a rugby player. And before you ask, no, there isn’t a Moody-Murphy player out there – but there is a Lewis Moody and a Geordan Murphy. Here they are:

 

Now when deciding my “surname” (what is wrong with my humans?) they couldn’t decide which to go for. You see, Geordan Murphy is Irish – like Paul. Lewis Moody is English – like Toni. So they couldn’t decide, and in the end said “Moody-Murphy” and found it really funny, and unfortunately, it stuck.

So here I am, named after three Leicester Tigers rugby players. This was all cemented when Paul came home from the pub with three entry cards to win a trip to see the British Lions play in New Zealand in 2005. Toni filled one out for her, one for Paul, and then used the third as “me”, filling out Austin Moody-Murphy as the competition entrant. Amazingly, I won! Not the trip to NZ, but a DVD of the previous Lions tour. How many cats do you know who officially own their own DVD? Huh? How cool am I?

I’m even registered at the vet as “Austin Moody-Murphy”. I like it, actually, gives me a sense of identity away from the humans. So yes, that is how I got my name.