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They’ve been living in the old Amell Estate for about eight months the first time he gets called “Hawke Amell.”
It’s a party, one of the many tedious affairs the not-quite-so-recent Fereldan immigrant barely tolerates for his mother’s sake. It’s strange to him, still, the… everything about this. Living in this grand, picturesque Estate, the cobwebs and remnants of the slavers they’d “evicted” some time back, his mother telling him stories of her childhood before her elopement and the fall of the Amells and never quite remembering not to turn to make sure Bethany and Carver were listening, too.
At least it agrees with her, in some ways. She seems like a woman ten years younger, sometimes, falling back into old half-forgotten habits and distractions from the emptiness of the family home. But it’s only that sometimes, most times, he misses Lowtown, the farmer turned refugee smuggler turned noble still feeling more at home in the Hanged Man than in the place he hangs his metaphorical hat. He doesn’t like these people, whispering sotto voce about their horrendous journeys through Lowtown, how unsafe they felt forced to deal with the masses for some trinket or another, flanked by guards and servants, and all Hawke can think is all the times he’s walked to visit Fenris or Merrill to keep them out of the gaze of the Hightown guards, Aveline’s influence or not.
He doesn’t like this, living the life set out for him by a grandmother he’d never met as if his mother’s 22 years with a mouthy Chasind apostate had never happened.
So he laughs - the genuine, startled noise a rare sound from the sarcastic, bombastic rogue - when he hears the name, not even knowing where to begin to correct the man and not entirely sure he wants to.
There are worse names than “Hawke,” really.
Still, perhaps he should have seen it coming when he asks late in the tavern one night, a few ales and entirely too many months of wondering -
“So what sort of name is ‘Anders’, exactly?”
“What sort of name is ‘Hawke’?” Anders tosses back, leaning his head on a hand and shooting a smile perhaps a little too like Hawke’s own for him not to have realized in retrospect, but Hawke’s always been too curious for his own good.
“One that everyone started calling me, I’d like to point out,” he counters.
“Does it bother you?” Anders asks.
“Not particularly,” Hawke says with a shrug. “I rather like it, actually. That no one can talk to me without bringing my disreputable apostate father into things.”
“And here I thought you just hated your first name,” Anders says.
“Is that the story behind yours?” Hawke asks. “Is it something embarrassing? Eugene? Hubert? Pubert?”
The mage laughs, then goes quiet, brows knitting briefly as he stares into his tankard of ineffective ale. “It’s… nice, sometimes. Owning what they call you. Making it your own. Isn’t it?”
Hawke nods in agreement, quiet for once, and watches as Anders shrugs before taking a long drink.
“Besides. Some of us were named after our fathers in the first place.”