Okay another lore dump
so, back when i used to live in the south, i had a dog i adored. Very sweet, well-behaved, only spoke spanish for some reason. I believe he was a pit mix of something (i’ll ask my dad later). And his name? Boy. No nicknames, no middle name, we’d call him ‘Boy’. I loved that Boy.
With this, i’d like to project it onto either the Curtis family (not just soda, not just pony, the whole damn family), or Dally.
The Curtis family requires no explanation. They have two children named ‘Ponyboy’ and ‘Soda’, and i bet you if Darry wasn’t a junior he’d have a weird americanized name too. They found some random dog on the streets and took him in, but god dang it, they don’t have a single thing prepared! Especially not a name! All of Darrel sr’s creativity went into his two youngest children’s names. Frannie (my hc name for mrs.curtis) wanted some sophisticated name that’d be a mouthful for a four year old, seven year old, and a ten year old. So, what do they do? They ask the children.
Darry wants to do the same as his mother, except the name is not a name it’s some word he learned from the dictionary yesterday. Sodapop wants a do-over of Ponyboy’s name and go with cowboy—he’s in the middle of his cowboy phase so he’s biased. Ponyboy? He’s a late bloomer when it comes to talking. It’s not like he couldnt, he said Darry’s name perfectly, he just didnt feel like it. When asked for his input, he says ‘Boy’. When asked in his later years, he reveals that he was agreeing with Soda’s vote for ‘cowboy’. But the family heard ‘Boy’ and ran with it.
Dally is a whole other story. He finds this dog lingering outsider Buck’s one time, not long after Dally got there himself! He feeds it some kind of taco-mystery meat concoction since it’s real skinny and dally was in the same condition not long ago. Dally knew Buck’s policy on pets, one of the first rules he was told: Dogs stay outside, and any smaller animals are to be kept in his room at all times. Dally decided ‘why not? What’s the worst that could happen?’ Lured the dog to Buck’s backyard with the mystery meat and shuffled him inside the sad shed in the back. He gathered as much as he could for this dog with minimal crimes committed (the store isn’t gonna miss one bag of dog food, a collar, or some dog bowls).
The dog was all set except for one thing: a name. Dally isn’t the greatest with names. He took his last name from a brand of cigarettes and nearly renamed himself after an actor (i have a hc that dally nearly changed his whole name, but settled on just changing the last name)! He goes with naming the thing after things he notices about the dog. Spotty, dirty, quiet..-y. Why did dally land on ‘Boy’ of all things? Well he took too damn long to name the thing, and Buck already started calling him ‘Boy’ to have him quit doing certain things. Now it was all the dog responded to!
