There was a short list, and a very short list it was, for Elliott’s name. We had a much longer list with Ben, but he did steal two of the names from that list that were our favourites with Benjamin and Connor. So with Elliott we kept the list short, using one or two from the list for Ben though the finalists were unique to Elliott himself.
The two final contenders were: Elliott and Wesley, both of them having favourite SF/Fantasy links to them, with Wesley making two of Leigh’s top favourite things in Buffy and Princess Bride.
But eventually we settled on Elliott. There were some compelling reasons for this and we did consider all of them to have encouraged and finalised our decision.
- Elliott actually looks like an Elliott. True he did look a bit like a Wesley as well, but he was more Elliott like.
- Elliott is the character from ET a favoured film for Leigh.
- Elliott is the name of the Dragon in Pete’s Dragon and Elliott was born in the Chinese year of the Dragon, always try and get a little recursion into your life.
- Elliott is a Scottish name and it means Ruler (King) of the Elves.
- Elliott’s second (middle) name is James and Elliott James Keating has a nice metrical feel to it.
And for those of you who are concerned at the spelling and the notion that it is also a girl name, well the spelling is traditionally Scottish and the usage of Elliott as a girl’s name is very modern. But to be honest Leigh and I both preferred the double l and t in the name so it was used.