I was talking to a friend the other night and the subject of pet-naming came up, and how it has changed over the years. Have you noticed there are all kinds of Jacks and Mollys now, and relatively few Spots and Snoopys?
Apparently, with the demographic shift towards later marriage and increasingly older ages for starting families, a lot of people are now giving their pets their favourite ‘people’ names. These are often the names they were saving for the babies they never got around to having. As a result, there are fewer dogs with ‘dog’ names or cats with ‘cat’ names.
Here are the top ten names for Canadian babies in 2007. According to this theory, the dog parks should be full of puppies with these names pretty soon.
Top 10 for boys:
Aiden
Ethan
Jacob
Jayden
Caden
Noah
Jackson
Jack
Logan
Matthew
Top 10 for girls:
Sophia
Isabella
Emma
Madison
Ava
Addison
Hailey
Emily
Kaitlyn
Olivia
Those boys’ names are hilarious. If you had triplets you could name them Aiden, Jayden and Caden. When I was six, I planned to grow up and marry a fireman who played the guitar and we would live in a bright yellow house with our five children: Harry, Pansy, and the triplets, Timmy, Tammy and Tommy. (I don’t know what happened, but it wasn’t that.)
The very first pets I named were two budgies I got on my seventh birthday: Little Joe and Honeybunch. (Little Joe was named after Little Joe on TV, and Honeybunch was named for the protagonist in a sickeningly sweet book I was reading at the time.)
A few years ago I inherited sixteen fish named Katherine.
The last pet I named was Duncan, and I don’t know why I named him that. It just seemed to suit him. (I seriously considered naming him Doug.)
Anyway, enough about me. What are your pets’ names and how did they get those names? I’m interested in your current pets, and also the ones you had as a kid, especially if you got to name them yourself.
I have five dogs and their names are Talia, Laila, Micah, Nina and Eli. I’ve always used hebrew names for my dogs (I’ve also had an Ari and a Shira) and particularly two syllable ending in a vowel as that is what they hear best! My preference is for human names. I’ve always thought it would be funny to have a dog named Greg!
I have 4 cats: Suki (love in Japanese-he’s a lover), Xena (warrior princess-considered naming her baby names I liked), Fletcher (my grandma couldn’t grasp my brother’s cat’s name ‘Chester’ and always called him Fletcher. I agreed that Fletcher was better) and Squeek (she squeaked when my husbanc first got her). I take pet naming seriously. We keep looking at names until they stick.
My cat’s name is Europa, my horse’s name is Freddy (short for Fire When Ready, his registered name) I used to have a rat when I was little named PJ (because his markings made him look like he was wearing pajamas) and my sister and I had a hamster named Pussywillow Chirpee (or PC for short) due to the fact that we could not agree on a name. My sister decided on Pussywillow after the hamster in the Cricket magazine comic, and I decided on Chirpee because she chirped. A lot.
Recent guinea pigs:
Squeaky — obvious reason
Dickens — he was always in trouble (a little Dickens)
Trip — adopted w/his name, he was 3 colors
Kosmo — named after the Seinfeld character with the wild hair
Childhood pets –
Ajax – a white rabbit (named after a bleach cleaner that gets everything white)
Sooty – a black cat
Harvey – a cat my Mom named. Don’t know where the name came from.
Laddie – a collie (the male equivalent of Lassie)
Andy – a poodle (because my dad said there was no way he was going to stand out on the porch calling for Fifi or Pierre)
Current pets are two cats – Max and Jasper – the names just fit them. A friend went one better with his cat…named Jaspurr…other cats in family past include Scruffy (yes he was), Winston (looked like Churchill), Rocky (?) and Ginger (she was a yellow tabby). Not much else for pets, but when the kids were little we had goldfish named Bart and Lisa.
We have four cats–Sissy (named by one of the children many years ago), NC (short for New Cat, which was her name at the vets while we were thinking of a name, about 10 years ago), Gandalf (because we found him in the parking lot of a Burger King where they were giving away Lord of the Rings stuff, and he was grey), and Boo, who is black and was found in a supermarket parking lot at about 4 weeks old, right before Halloween. And the dog is Dixie–she came with the name but it suits her. And we had a big orange cat, much like yours, who was named Chipper because he was found by the men chipping wood in the park.
Our dog is named Dewey – as in “do we” really want to get another dog? He is an adopted dog who never responded to his shelter name but, when we were trying out various names on him, immediately responded to Dewey. I guess he named himself!
We have a chihuahua named Harry Barker (he is and does). When my son was little he had two gerbils. They were called the Pooter Twins – they looked exactly alike so very hard to tell apart. He also had a gerbil named Springer (he did). We had a cat named Bree (french for noisy – she was). Had a cat named Dusty (she was a dusty gray & dusty orange. Had two cats called Ralph & Fred (boys).
Zoom, I had to laugh when you said you considered naming Duncan “Doug” — *was* it as a tribute to Gary Larson?
http://www.cybersaps.org/images/static/images/Lions/Beware.gif
Here are the cats that have considered me as their personal attendant over the years (sans rationale provided for their names, because they were pre-named when they parked themselves on my doorstep and in my heart):
Current crew – Minnie, Tommy Trouble and Daisy Mae
Hall of Famers – Max, Jake Abbey, Bucky, Fermi, Sooty, Blackie, Bill (this was my 22-lb tabby, the only one that *I* personally named, so I understand your penchant for “Doug”), Birdie and Macabé. (This last one is a mystery to me; he was named by my ex-wife and I never questioned the origin of the word. I Googled the name just now, and it means “cadaver” in some obscure Middle English context. I knew there was something weird about that woman.)
I remember reading about a guy who named his dog “Cat” and his cat “Dog” – it drove the neighbours nuts when he would call his pets in to the house.
BTW – the charming front desk person from our Cat Hospital left a voicemail message here yesterday to thank us for referring you and Duncan to them. Good thing I wasn’t here to take the call, or I would have suggested that the best thanks they could give me for the referral would have been to pretend to like their jobs and treat new visitors and their pets decently.
gs
My own dog is Kenya. When I came home from Africa the last time I decided to settle down and the best way to tether me was to get a puppy. I did. She is big and black and beautiful and she became my Kenya.
I dog sit and the dogs have been: Nina, Wilbur, and Teddy (all owners childless at the time); Seamus (owner overburdened with kids); Remi (owners travelers, now settling in to child bearing and home buying); Tango (a family dog); Zen (a hyperactive boxer who is filling an empty nest); and Havoc (a Doberman puppy with a young mistress).
Rudy, after the football movie. Quincey, Chloe, Fergus (Rob has no idea why). Chester, Wally, Petie, Alex (horse-shortened from Lexicon), Brogue, Black Velvet (guess what he was). Sam, short for Samantha.
Kati has Tucker after D’Arcy Tucker.
Lindsay has Hank and Hank Junior…Junior for short…she’s not too imaginative
Two cats: Lucky was already named at the time our vet asked us to give him a home and Ramona was named 16 years ago by our three (then) little girls. Ramona was named after a Beverly Cleary character, Ramona the Pest. Our Ramona is not a pest; Lucky is. Lucky is, however, lucky and esp. at four in the morning, every damn morning.
I purchased my first cat when I was five years old. My dad was a milk truck driver at the time (think the big stainless steel cans from dairy farms in the ’50’s and ’60’s) and he left me unsupervised one day with a penny in my pocket. At his return, I was accompanied in the truck’s cab by a long-haired striped cat the size of your Duncan. My father’s revenge was to have me name the cat after the previous owner’s (much despised) middle name which I would announce to all the neighbours over and over again in my shrill 5-year-old voice. I miss my cat Manfred!
Have I told you this already? Sometimes I repeat . . .
We have Mica – grey and white husky who has shimmery two toned hairs – like the mineral mica.
Lunatic – shortened to Luna – a mellowed out but previously crazed siamese/burmese mix cat.
We’ve also had Highway – husky with a divided highway stripe down his nose.
And a yorkshire terrier who went through 3 names Maxine when it was thought he was female, Max until it was obvious that the child Max really deserved the name more despite being younger, then Jack because he came to it when we called him.
Beans – the longest lived oregon newt in the world
Homer – an accident prone runt of the litter orange tabby cat
and Booi a big white fluffball of a cat who actually got called Bouchees – semi moist catfood – his downfall, he wouldn’t eat dry and lost all his teeth in old age.
Personally I like dog names so much, I name my children with them
We have Westies, Remy and Zoli. I hate to tell it but they are both named for firearms. Husband collects and it was sort of a compromise, fluffy little white dogs with “big” names. We’ve had Mckenzie and Zack before them. Question….I know 3 people that have cats named Monty. Is there something I’m missing?
We have always named our dogs after TV characters:
Gopher (Love Boat) – some of you are too young to remember.
Trapper (Mash) – ditto
Lucy (NYPD Blue) – ditto again
Murphy (Murphy Brown) – and again.
and our current clan is Norm (Cheers) and Phoebe (Friends).
Wow, after writing this I realize we need to update our names from shows someone might actually remember watching!!!
My cat is Stevie, short for Cat Stevens. I got her in university with a brother who was long-haired and we called him Ludwig, which became Lud almost immediately because he was really laid-back… he got dreads and we fancied him a rasta-cat because if he could have I’m sure he would have liked one of those colourful hats and a dube.
Before that I named two Leopolds and two Wolfgangs – I was dying to have a cat named Wolfie… but I never managed to get my hands on those cats after all.
The first pet I named was a hamster and I named him Charlie because I liked Prince Charles so much (I was five and must have just watched him marry Princess Di).
My current cats are black and white sisters that I let my husband name because he said our cats were always my pets. So one is named Lynette, though he wanted to call her Squeaky because of her pitiful meow. The other is Agnes because he thought she had a plain face and that name suited her.
My previous cats were tuxedo boys, Sparky and Spike. My husband thought they should be Geek and Beak because one had big ears and the other had a white nose.
Before that I had a black cat named Jeremiah though she was a female. When I was a child we had several cats named Snow White and a tabby Mitchell T. Cat (T for Tom).
My current dog’s real name (not her secret blog identity!) is Sacha, and she was so named because her name at the SPCA was “Sassy” and we wanted something close to that, but different. My cat’s name is Potter, I was reading the first Harry Potter book when I got him ten years ago. The other dog I had, who went with my ex when we split, was named George, which just suited him so well we couldn’t resist it, even though it is my Grandad’s name and my Grandad was not pleased.
J.
I used to have a cat named Potato.
I was living with a certain Ottawa blogger at the time and we inherited a cat named Petunia. This was too sweet for us and so we decided on something similar without the sugar.
Thus, potato.
Our dogs are named Maya and Petunia. Maya was “inherited” and she came with her name. Petunia is named after a delicate little flower which, being that she’s a scrappy Jack Russell pound dog, is akin to calling a Chihuahua “Butch”.
When I was a toddler we had a Samoyed named Chimo. This is a name I plan to reuse in the future because I love the history of that word in Canada and how we attempted as a nation to make it our “aloha” (as per one of Douglas Coupland’s Souvenir of Canada books).
I have a cat named Yitzhak Vincenzo. I formed a naming committee, composed of two Jews and an Italian. This was shortly after the assasination of Yitzhak Rabin, so we chose to name the cat after him, and I just liked how Vincenzo went with it. Very multicultural. And gender-bending, since I later discovered that cat was female (the shelter lied to me!).
The b/f has a very pretty calico cat he named Daisy Duke. Men of all ages get the same goofy grin when they hear the cat’s name. We also call her Princess Daisy.
Last but not least, the b/f and I took in a stray kitten we named Hilfy Chanur, taken from C. J. Cherryh’s Pride of Chanur series. Our Hilfy, like Cherryh’s, is bold and brave, which occasionally gets her into trouble.
Before I was brave enough to have a dog, I had “starter pets” – hamsters. Only one at a time – I didn’t want a population explosion. I gave them names that had four syllables because I thought they needed an extra long handle for being such a little animal. They were Arabella, Benedictine, Cassiopeia, Desdemona and Ebenezer (who started as Esmerelda until it became obvious that was incorrect). I recently read Pratchett’s “The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents” and loved the names that the rats gave themselves, based on things they read at the dump: Dangerous Beans, HamnPork, Peaches, Darktan.
You mean people name their sons after “Logan-the-Dog”. That’s just funny!
The pets I’ve named:
My cat – Percible, Percy for short. She’s a girl but named after a character in 5th Business.
Our second dog (I didn’t name the first, but his name is Tyrone) – Bernard aka Bernie
I had 2 canaries as a id but I don’t remember their names.
I had a bunch of gold fish. My favorite was Tony because he was small and grey but Bull ate him on his 2nd night.
Pets I’ve named:
Cat: Myrtle (and she answered to it right from the start)
Dog: Sidney (because she didn’t acknowledge the name the SPCA gave her – Anna)
Bear(shnauzer) Finnigan(short haired dashound)r.i.p. Dudley(old english sheapdog) Blaise (devildog)Ripped………………………………….
Joyce–Monty is the alley cat in the Stuart Little movies, so that might be why.
My own pets, except for a couple from childhood, do not have what I consider to be people names. We had dogs when I was a kid: Oscar, Cindy (named after our babysitter), Paintbrush (beagle with white-tipped tail), Doc (pre-named), Coco, Cats from childhood: Boots, Yeller, Spicy, Ashes, Boots (again)…Other critters from childhood: Nosey & Jennifer (mice), gerbils named after our parents, lizards named Merri, Pippin & Gimli, rabbits Oatmeal & Hopsy.
Since I’ve gotten to be a grownup–cats: Niko, Smudge, Marmalade. Rats: Cafe au Lait, Moon, Terra, Venus & Neptune. My older son wanted to name our orange cat Jello, but I suggested the Marmalade instead…
Current pets:
My “mostly” German shepherd is Zeke (or Ezekiel) when I’m lecturing him on something.
My Senegal parrot is Mango. Or Miss Mango, or Shorty Pajorty or Chickenpants.
(I tend to call my pets a multitude of things, and it’s a wonder they know who I’m talking to.
Former pets:
Jessica the cat, aka Jessica Bear, aka J Bean, aka Jay.
Jessica came from the pound as an adult and I went through several names for her before I found the right one. Dushenka was her first, after a Siberian crane I worked with as an intern.
My Mom had an orange, long haired guinea pig named Chewbacca, which was appropriate on two levels. Chewie, aka Mr. Pig, was “only a pound overweight” (3 pounds as opposed to 2) and lived to be at least 6 years old, which astounded his vet.
In my childhood, we had a family cat named “Satan” as a kitten because it was so naughty. When we found out it was a girl cat, Mom named her Deborah, after a woman in the Bible who caused a lot of trouble herself.
Oh, and there was also Guinness, the Irish Setter.
My childhood kitties were called Midnight (she was black) and Coco (I don’t know, my brother named her).
Ad this kinda ties into your post – my parents had a cat for years before we were born, his name was Andy. They’d always liked the name, and ended up changing the cat’s name when my brother was born, because they wanted my brother’s name to be Andrew. I renamed the cat “Dr Purq” after our dentist, when I was 3.
And my own kitties, since moving out of my parents’ place – I chose “Czar” because he didn’t suit a cutesy cat name. I miss him.
And then there’s my Kiki – I’m not sure why I called her that. They had called her “Kiara” at the Humane Society, but that was too long and she was too cute for it, so she became Kiki.
jan, one of our neighbours has two daschunds named Casey and Finnegan, I smile every time I think of them.
OMG, this is a record around here: 30 comments! 185 pet names! I can’t even begin to respond, other than to say my theory doesn’t hold up. People seem to be a lot more creative about pet-naming than about people-naming.
My husband and I have had 2 cats: Hecubus (from the Kids in the Hall character) was a stray and had a nasty evil streak for the first several years we had him. Wormy is our other cat; he was a street kitten with a bloated belly that we thought was bound up with worms but turned out to be just gas. Really smelly gas.
We also have had two corn snakes. The first was Jub-Jub, named for Patty’s iguana in the Simpsons. He escaped at my parents’ house, and we then changed his name to Jub-Jub I: The Great Escape. Soon afterwards we got a second cornsnake, named Jub-Jub II: The Journey Home.
I have a Molly cat… her name was soon amended to Molly-the-Duck because she quacked instead of meowed. Our other cat (who we did not name) is Phlox, which is the ancient Greek word for fire (He is a grey tabby. makes no sense to me either.). My childhood cat is Chicago: she has four white sox. Ba da DA!
my current dog is Joey…after the baby kangaroo. When I was a kid one of our barn cats had a litter and I named them all after characters from a popular T.V. show. There was H.R.Puffenstuff, Cling, Clang, Witchipoo and Jimmy.
I’ve named a lot of animals over the years, but I do have one favourite pet naming story that I’d like to share. We had purchased an adorable, red merle Australian shepherd pup (female) and were having a terrible time coming up with a name that would stick. We tried all of the obvious Australia-relatd ones…Sheila, Barbie (shrimp on a…), but nothing. One night about a week after she arrived in our home, I had a very vivid dream. In it, I was calling her to come and using the name, Kiama. So…Kiama she was. Only much later did I find out that Kiama is indeed a place in Australia (cue the very cheesy, spooky theme music).
Funny that animal names got me to unlurk –
I also have noticed the trend towards people names for animals. I always find it weird when I meet a dog named Catherine or Sophia. That being said, I tend towards going with unusual or offbeat people names for my animals. I currently have a dog named Jasper and a cat named Roxy. Up until a few months ago, I had another lovely cat named Theodore (Theo). I’ve never met people with any of these names, which is the point.
We took in a stray pregnant cat last year and named her Shahora, which means ‘black’ in Hebrew. This was my response to my childrens’ desires to call her Blackie. I let the kids each name a kitten, and I named the two left-over. They chose Sam, Lucy and Cookie (Cookie was black and white, like an Oreo cookie). I named one with a white strip on his forehead Harriet after Harry Potter. We thought he was a she for a long time, so officially he is now Harry, but sometimes Harriet slips out. The other was fuzzy gray and kept beating up his siblings, so he was named Stormy.
As a kid, I had a snake named Zarathustra and a rat named James Sebastian (it amused me to give such a long and dignified name to a snake). And, believe it or not, a dog named Rover.
Naming pets allows you to be more creative because they aren’t every going to complain that all the other dogs are making fun of them when you call their name. That’s my theory.
A cat named Chevy – he was found under the hood of an old Chevy truck. The man always had to fiddle with the engine on cold mornings so just opened the hood. One morning he a skinny white kitten.
My Corgi Ned was going to be registered as Waking Ned Devine (I’d just seen the movie). However when I got him, he had an enormous head – seriously about 1/3 of his length was head – so he was instead registered as Big Head Ned. Thankfully, his body grew while his head stayed pretty much the same size so he looks normal now.
OOPS, didn’t read before hitting enter. That’s one morning he FOUND a skinny white kitten.
I have two cats, acquired in 1999 when I was 19 (they live with my parents) – they are named Frances Bean (after the child of Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love – my sister and I were in our grunge/punk phase at the time and worshipped those two) and Phoebe, after Phoebe from Friends. Frances Bean gets called Beanie most of time, except for when she has been exceptionally bad (fairly frequent occurrence) and then its Frances Bean.
My boyfriend and I were discussing cat names the other day and we reckon Ian would be the funniest name for a cat. My friend Melissa had a cat called Richard which I also think is somewhat hilarious.
I think Duncan is ace, by the way : )
We always had big white fluffy Samoyed dogs in our family. The first was named Sooty (for a white dog?) named after a panda in an English TV show in the 60’s. The next came with the name Marsha which was pretty embarassing, “Is it short for Marshmallow?” (remember.. white fluffy dog). The last came with the name Princess and was smartly renamed Samantha or Sam (finally a fit for a Samoyed!)
Well, I laughed when I read the bit about 16 fish named Catherine, as we once had 4 fish named the George (our take on the Borg.)
One of the most eccentric cat names we’ve had was Fish, apparently named because they thought she was a mackerel tabby.
Max – the most common name for cats at the time (and very common for dogs too)
Gilmour – named because she was a stray found when we lived on Gilmour street
Tyger – Named when I was a little girl, the spelling chosen by my mother after Blake’s poem
Smudge – A tortoiseshell named for the smudge on her nose (not for any of the other smudge’s she’s covered in)
Kichi – Japanese for Lucky (interesting fact, my vet says that the most common name for a pet that he sees in the emergency services is Lucky! lol)
Kagami – Japanese for mirror (I was taking Japanese in school at the time I chose the “twins” names)
Erik – An orange stray who forced his way into our hearts and home (full name Erik “Chicken Legs” Leroux)
Ziggy – short for Sigismund Stewart DesNeiges a second stray following Erik only months later, first name for his aerian looks (blue eyed, white fur), Stewart because he was adopted on stewart street and DesNeiges after a white dog who used to live nearby
There have more cats in my life, but I’m too tired to post anymore! heehee
I don’t know about Ian, for some reason it makes me think of a tom cat who pees on things “Peein’ Ian.
The best cat names I remember were Oedipuss (a cat with a home it turned out. I thought he was a stray and my neighbour and I KINDLY got him fixed.)
and
Cat-astrophe – that one was Zoom’s!
I am staff for six cats, all having people names. Percy is the oldest and he moved in when the kids and I were in our Blackadder phase. As he is not a black cat I couldn’t name him Edmund so we named him Percy. Next came Shirley. She was supposed to be my daughter’s cat. My daughter chose the name for reasons that are not clear to me and several years later the daughter went off and got married and Mom still has the cat. Claudia got her name partially because of the claw in her name and partially because I was in my Interview with a Vampire phase. Bailey came to us pre-named from a relative. Isabella is another one of my daughter’s cats and reflects her admiration for Isabella Rosellini. Usually she is called Izzy and that suits her neurotic personality. And then there’s Bart,formally Bartleby, whose name refers to an interest in a movie by that name on my daughter’s part and an old,old crush of mine on a boy whose nickname was Bart. Six cats are more than sufficient for me but if I had more I’d give them other people names.
The fishes remind me a cute story I read recently called “An Abundance of Katherines” about a teenage boy who was constantly falling for girls named Katherine and then having failed relationships.
Totally off topic here, but …
Hi Zoom – quite a response you’ve gotten!
Here’s mine:
Our two beautiful bengal/burmese are Ruby and Shackleton. Ruby after her beautiful mother; Shackleton cause she’s a wee white explorer.
Previously I’ve had a Foxtrot, a Ramblesmabs, and a Turboboot.
My wife named her goldfish after her mum and dad’s given names. Shackleton drinks out of their bowl.
My brother had a turtle name ‘Seeya’, cause every time he tried to return it to the wild they’d call out ‘see ya!’.
He’s also had 3 cats named Kitty.
Howzat.
Smabs
I love all these pet names. And the fact that some of you have SIX CATS ALL AT THE SAME TIME.
Robert-the-Person, owner of Logan-the-Dog: One of my mom’s groundhogs was named Walter, after my grandfather. We subsequently had to rename my grandfather Walter-the-Person.
Smabulator! What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at the hospital delivering a baby or something??
I have two dogs – Noah (funny thats on the list) and Anggie (she came with the name Angel, but it didnt fit)
The cats name is Emma and the Rabbit is Captain Earl.
As a kid I had “Tom the Dog” “meow” “logan” “henery the goat” and Mike the iguana
Ive alwaysed liked using People names…except for Meow, but i was two and couldnt say his real name “Sabastian”
My husband and I have a cat named Biscuit. Biscuit has a nickname–the biz cat. When my husband and I were dating we joked about getting a dog and a cat and naming them Biscuit and Gravy. We ended up getting the cat first and thought having a single animal named Gravy (without the Biscuit) was just too odd… so Biscuit it is! I’m not sure where biz-cat came from other than it being a weird morph of his name. We use it when he’s acting too cool for us.
We tend to use characters from books for our pets if they don’t come named already. We named the dog we rescued, Piemur from Dragondrums by Ann McCaffrey. Most people reactions when they hear our dog’s name is “huh? Timer?”. However, when I emailed a dog trainer about getting help transitioning Piemur to our home. She wrote back “You named him Piemur and your surprised he gets in trouble?”
It was funny to us.
Currently I own Roxie the cat (I think I’d just read the play “Chicago” when she stumbled along) but I call her BabyGirl unless she’s beging bad. She is about to turn 21! Then there is Emma Teazle the cat (Emma because I adore the name, Teazle after a character in the play I was working on at the time.) However, she answers to “Roxie,” the silly girl.
I previously owned a huge mutt dog named Mouse (he had been abused before we adoped him and was quiet and shy), a shitzu named Lord Ragland Ze-Chai (Ragzie for short, but he was AKA certified so I figured he needed an official sounding name), Mickey the cat and Stone the cat (Stone after a character in yet another play I was working on at the time we adopted him.)
My mother wouldn’t let me name my childhood pets – she did that for me.
We have 3 cats.
Rafferty is a pedigree Maine Coon, long-haired ginger boy – we
named him after Jude Law’s little boy!
Arthur is a ginger and white long-haried moggy. We got him from a rescue centre and he came with his name.
Ivan Tiggs is a short-haried ginger boy and we named him after the character on Boston Legal because I thought it was the coolest name ever for a cat!
We have two Maine Coons:
Papagenno, a large black fluffernutter (shortened to Papa)
Pico de Gato, a bicolor boy (he gets called Pico)
neighborhood cats:
Sparky, a 14-lb orange tabby
Scooter
Lil’Buddy (Gilligan)
To tie it all in, as a first-time poster, I am making a cat-rug out of leftover Brown Sheep Bulky because Papa lurves on the skeins and I need to distract him with something.
I have one cat right now named Ember (not Amber as my dad keeps calling her!). Her name was inspired by one of my favourite singers: Ember Swift. Most people assume it is because she is a calico-tabby and has glowing orange spots on her black and brown back (glowing embers). Before I knew she was a girl, I was considering calling her Rigel, a character on the sci-fi show “Farscape”. Her personality is exactly like Rigel’s – cocky and abrasive, but a total wimp and will suck-up when it suits her. Still kicking self for not crossing gender lines with her name. If I get a dog, I might consider Dargo. Again with the Farscape.
Also have had in my childhood:
Merlin (big black dog) – cousins named him because he “disappeared” during thunder storms
Schmedley (grey cat) – mom name him, wanted something weird
Max, Andrea and Kermit (goldfish) – no idea why 5yr old me called them that!
Frodo and Bilbo (birds) – dad was a Tolkin fan
Lucky, Soda and Tia (dogs), Rosco and Jacob (cats) all came with their names.
Best named pet I’ve met: Arnold [Schwareneggar], the toy poodle.
I know I’m late to the party (here’s hoping 50-ish people don’t get notified that there’s a followup comment) but I thought I’d share mine since I don’t often get to talk about this subject. Sorry for the length!
My first pet was an orange short-haired tabby that my brother named Katie after our favorite childhood Little Golden Book “Katie the Kitten.” She and Dad had a rather contentious relationship, as she preferred pooping in his closet to her litterbox.
Next came Jessie, also named by my brother, after his crush du jour. She was a white kitten with patches of brown and black stripes, dumped out the window of a van on our street. She drooled when she purred.
Our long-haired orange tabby kitten was my cat, but somehow my brother managed to name him too: Mikey (short for every 12 yr old’s idol at the time, Michael Jordan).
I named my cockatiel Sunny because of her yellow head.
A major reason I latched onto your blog was our first puppy, a small but extremely fluffy sable Sheltie that Mom named Duncan. His registered name was Sienna Shetland Isles Summit but that’s too much of a mouthful and she wanted a Scottish everyday name to go with his Scottish breed. “Duncan” just sounded more regal than “Malcolm” or “Angus.”
The current 8 yr old puppy is a larger blue merle Sheltie, and Mom had to follow suit with the naming scheme so he became Brodie. He’s a happy-go-lucky knucklehead but we love him.
My most recent pet was a sugar glider I named Indiana Jones after his incredible escape artist abilities. He was occasionally referred to as “Mister Jones” (after the Counting Crows song) or “Indysaurus Rex” for his fearsome needle-teeth.
Aaaaaaaaaand that’s all! Thanks for letting me relive the furry/feathery family history, and all the best to you and your glorious dogcat!
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