What's in a Name

I was thinking about names the other day whilst Mystical Roo and I were bickering over the name of our snake, who incidentally is called Boris and NOT Snakey.  Or Justin.  And Boris isn't even a real snake.  He's a toy wooden snake that looked so life like he was banned from the office and sent home with Little Stalky.  So I may have hidden him in a few folders and caused a few squeals but did poor Boris really deserve to be banished?  Poor Boris.  So I was wondering why we're drawn to some names and not to others.  When naming things, wooden toy snakes for example, how can we like a name and dislike others.  Is it the sound the name makes when you say it?  The way it looks when you write it down?  Personally I think it's all down to name association, or in many cases bad name association.  Mystical Roo and I have discussed this and decided where there are names we dislike it's because we knew someone of the same name who, for whatever reason, we didn't like.  Maybe it was the kid who was mean to you at school, the boy who smelt a bit funky, the girl with a strange association to land dwelling sharks or the cow bag (now there's a word that's not used often enough) who tormented you in the office.  Either way, if the only person you knew with the name Boris had flicked bogies at you on the bus then I guess the name Boris wouldn't be associated with the best of memories.  Maybe that's why Mystical Roo is insisting on calling the snake Snakey.  He knew a Boris the bogie flicker.  Now Mystical Roo and I haven't done much naming in our time but when we first got our rabbit there was much debate over what he should be called.  We settled upon Robbie for comical reasons that I won't go in to but on the list was Al, David and Fluffy.  It's strange that Robbie seemed to suit him perfectly.  Was he always destined to be a Robbie or did we just become accustomed to knowing him as Robbie, therefore assuming the name was always meant to be.  All I know is that it was never going to be Al or David.  Or Pacino for that matter.  Mystical Roo vetoed Fluffy and that was fair enough.  Robbie was never going to be a Fluffy.  I name all of my stuffed toys, which I think is a fairly normal thing to do.  Even if you are a 25 year old woman.  Some of my names are not very inventive.  My toy penguin is just penguin.  And Tigger is Tigger.  But then Tigger is Tigger so you can't go messing with that.  When Monster Noggin bought me a toy platypus after I'd had my wisdom teeth pulled we named him Attacus for the rhyming value.  Attacus the platypus.  I have no idea what Attacus means or if indeed it does mean anything.  But if it does mean something and I've offended anyone, please accept my sincerest apologies.  I wonder if Mystical Roo and I ever have to name something important, like a llama or something, how long it will take us to reach an agreement.  Maybe we never would and it would be the whole Boris / Snakey / Justin situation over again.  I'll call it one thing, Mystical Roo will call it another and we'll never reach a solution.  Well I'm not sure I'd be happy with that.  There's only one way to fix this.  Name tags!