What's in a Name?

"Eugene, how do you spell your name?" Rapunzel asked across the narrow study table they both sat at in the castle's royal library.

He already knew he had to field her questions carefully. His eyes tried to remain in his own book, but his mind was already drifting to wonder what she was onto this time. He hesitated and groaned to indicate he was not in the mood to be distracted for the thousandth time today. "Why?"

Rapunzel wrote down a "Y." "And then?"

"What?" he asked, only half paying attention.

"I"m guessing a 'U?'" she continued.

Eugene finally put his book down and looked over at her. Still confused, he took in that she was seated at the table, charcoal pencil in hand and already had started writing a couple letters on her paper. "What are you..." he wondered aloud. He reached, stretching as far as he could to avoid getting up, and snatched the paper from her. "Yu" was written at the top. He turned it over, the back had notes about her parents' names already, as well as what looked like an unrelated drabble about a dog. "What's this for?"

"I want to figure out what your name means. Oh-!" she gasped in realization, then looked sheepish about it. "You were asking 'why,' weren't you..."

Finally he broke into a laugh. "Yeah," but then he groaned again, "Um, do you have to?"

"Why not?" she practically pouted.

"I dunno, why so?"

They threw determined glares at each other, before he cracked a giggle at her expressions. "People used to make fun of my name- well, they probably still do," he explained. "I just keep better company these days." He thought a smirk would end this.

"Why would they make fun of it? I remember what you said that night by the campfire, but, I don't see why anyone wouldn't like that name."

"Well, to little kids, they just think it sounds stuffy and pompous. You don't usually hear of commoners having names like 'Eugene Fitzherbert.' And some kids can be really mean about anything different like that."

"That's not nice."

"Obviously."

"But what about adults? Why would people still make fun of it?"

"Er..." Eugene looked uneasy, and scratched some stubble on his neck as he swallowed. "Have you ever studied any Latin?"

"Yeah!" She pitched forward, exploding in serendipitous excitement. "That's how I've been finding the meanings of most everyone's names!"

Eugene slouched even further than he already was. He sighed. "My name is spelled, E-U-G-E-N-E."

Rapunzel slowly repeated the letters to herself as she carefully wrote them down.

"You got it?"

"Yeah." She looked back on it for a moment, mostly to critique her calligraphy. "Oh!" A light dawned across her face.

Eugene pensively watched her, his head still resting on his hand, hiding his lips.

"That's easy." Rapunzel smirked over to him. "That means 'Beautiful birth.'"

He sat up a little, a little smile trying to worm its way out to her. "Which is also transliterated as..." He waited for her to finish the sentence.

"Beautiful born?" She tilted her head, unsure what he was getting at.

He sighed, finally resting his top half in crossed arms on the table in defeat. "And when you actually look up the book translation of Eu-, it's 'beautiful,' or, 'noble.'"

"Noble born, then," she nodded affirmatively.

Eugene nodded, too, but rolled his hands for her to continue. "Think about it..."

Rapunzel stared into the table as she turned the label over in her head. It was her turn to slouch now, as her face fell. "You weren't..." She looked up to meet his eyes. "You weren't noble born."

He pursed his lips as he slowly nodded. "Growing up without parents," he stretched back into his chair, "In an orphanage full of nuns and priests who made sure everyone knew enough Latin to make it through mass, well... Kids knew enough. 'Noble born' don't end up as orphans."

"But, now you are-!" She caught herself. "But, adults know you weren't born into this though," she thought out loud.

"Eeexactly!" he pointed in the air. "And that's even besides all the legitimate former-thief-Flynn Rider concerns," which he waved away behind him.

Rapunzel sighed. "That's just..." She trailed off, scoffing, and shaking her head in disapproval at the tile floor. With a deep breath, she snapped back to her project. "Anyway," she shrugged off the negative comparisons and probable insults swarming her mind. "What about Fitzherbert?" She picked up her pencil again and looked to him expectantly once more.

He gave a sighing chuckle at how irrepressible she was, but he sat back up to the table. Slowly, he recited, "F-I-T-Z, H-E-R, B-E-R-T. That's German. The 'Fitz' part means 'son of,' so it's 'son of Herbert.'"

"And what does 'Herbert' mean?"

"Ah-" Eugene blinked. "I, uh, I actually don't know." He flopped back yet again. "It wasn't my father's first name, so. Huh, you got me, Blondie. Why don't you look that part up, then?"

Rapunzel grinned eagerly as she slid over one of the large books she had splayed open. After a few minutes of paging through, double checking, and scribbling more notes, she sat up straight and proud. "I've got it." Her face was positively impish, she was so excited!

Eugene had to laugh at her expression. "Well what is it? What am I a 'son of-' then?"

She squinted, puffed her chest out, and crossed her arms, thoroughly enjoying her smug. "Knight, in shining armor."

Eugene fell deadpan, merely raising his eyebrows. "Knight in shining armor?" He glanced to Pascal, who was helping weight down some pages, but he looked just as proud as her. "You made that up," he frowned.

"No!" Rapunzel whined.

"Blondie, you don't need to trick me into feeling better about it all."

"Look." She shoved the paper in front of him, and but he took both the paper and the book. He double checked for himself as she continued. She leaned forward, balancing all her weight on her elbows as she kicked her feet up into the air. She proceeded to read from her notes upside-down. "HER- in German, or HUR- in English, ER- in French, and also HER- in Polish. All derived from 'hari' in Germanic which means 'army,' or 'warrior.' The Germanic 'beraht' means 'bright,' or 'shiny.' Literally, it says together they make 'illustrious warrior,' but don't you think you might as well say that's the same as a 'knight in shining armor?'"

He finished checking, but was still in disbelief.

"Well?" she sneered impatiently waiting to be proven right.

Eugene glanced back down, but then looked up to her with a humble smile. "Well, then I guess I'm your noble-born knight-in-shining-armor."

Rapunzel began giggling, and he finally joined in a bit.

He leaned across the table on his elbows as well, finally lifting himself from his seat a bit. She was blushing as he pecked her cheek. "So, have you looked up what 'Rapunzel' means yet?"

"Oh, mine just means 'lettuce,' apparently," she shrugged.

He recoiled and cocked one brow at her. "Lettuce?!"

She chuckled. "That, or some kind of magic golden flower. So who knows," she shrugged.

He chuckled back with her as they leaned in for a real kiss.