When we went to pick Malone up, we were ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY going to get a female. But somewhere in there, Mark wavered, and we both fell in love with the cutest spunkiest male, so all of our female lists of names went out the window. SO, the whole afternoon, we went down over hundreds of names, and nothing seemed to fit. I was down to the second-to-last name on this one list, and it was "Brigadier". We kind of hooted over it, and Mark said "Private" (as in Private Eye). There was a kind of popular song on the radio ("You'll always be riding with Private Malone"). And since we knew he would always go everywhere with us, it just stuck and was rather fitting. It grew on us, and that's how we got his name. And also, it is in a round-about way, a tribute to the many soldiers who died who gave us our freedom. And I liked that connection as well.