Pet naming

[Karen]

When you name your pet, do you look for a common name, popular one, or more unique? Just curious, as of course when processing nominations, I often have to make sure it isn't a "Daisy" or a "Bailey" or a "Chewy" that has already been featured before! And today's Dog of the Day has the same name as kak's kitty whose 1 year gotcha day anniversary is today!

[Taz_Zoee]

When we named our current pets we tossed around names and my boyfriend had to be able to shorten it to a nickname (Zo, Tagg, Paiz and well Jax is just Jax!). And we both had to like the name. We didn't care if they were too common or too unique, we just went with whatever. Well, Taggart was already named at the shelter and we liked it so we kept it. :)

[cassiesmom]

I'm surprised Cassie even knows her name because I call her so many other things... a friend calls her Cassie Lassie, which got shortened to Lassie and then to Lass; she gets called Madam when she is being mischievous; Bug- I have no idea where that came from ("Hi, bug!"). A lot of the time she gets called the Princess because she eats before I do, she generally walks in front of me when I am going from room to room, and at night she is so funny, she expects me to let her settle into her sleeping spot before I lie down. Yes, ma'am. My nephew's cat Winston was like that too- he had a billion permutations of his name and he knew all of them referred to him. (and he was equally good at ignoring each one when he wasn't getting what he wanted)

[slick]

All of my cats were adopted and came with their own names which I kept. Nevertheless, I have a word document with a whole list of potential cat names - some I've heard on the TV and some on the internet. They are all names that "speak" to me..... :o

[wolf_Q]

I like more unique, but I prefer shorter, easy to pronounce names. I really like my dogs names...okay well I didn't name Killer, and I wouldn't have named him Killer but it suits him in an opposite way. ;) But the huskies names Nebo, Keva, and Skya I came up with and I think they are unique and fit them. I have a list of names somewhere on a computer I've come up with for future dogs.

[Freedom]

I like to see what the pet's personality is like, and then try to get a name to reflect that.

Of my bichons, Lacey is the only one I named. All the rest already had names, being rescues. Lacey is a rescue as well, but she was found roaming the streets, so we have no idea what name she went by for her first 5 years. She is a soft mellow personality, very feminine and dainty -- and of course the bichon coat is lacy - like, too!

The cats are where I got to name, and their names reflect personality and what was occurring when they joined our family. Sparkle brought some sparkle into life, it was just me and RB Mr. Amber Cat ("Amber") and Amber was becoming a lazy pudgy boy. She sure took care of that! He heeee.

[chocolatepuppy]

Laylas name came from the Eric Clapton song. Always loved that name and it seemed to be just right for her.

Jakes name came from the Pirates of the Mississippi song Feed Jake.

Missy was named by my the children of a coworker who I got her from at three months old. It seemed to fit her so I kept it.

Angel was named by the rescue and I kept it.

Tessa's name is Contessa, also named by the rescue, and I call her Tessa.

[Casper]

I prefer more unique names, and you can probably tell which pets I named and which were named by other people. :p

Khaith the cat, Towser the pup, Wilhelm the rat, Adelaide the cat, etc. I am just drawn to names I haven't heard a million times. Then again, if an animal joins the family that already has a name and I'm not fond of said name, I normally don't change it. I hated my tortie Martha's name for the longest time. My sister's friend named her and I just thought it was one of the worst names for a cat. :o It eventually grew on me and I can't imagine her with any other name. Plus, its fun singing "Martha My Dear" to a cat! lol

The only animal that got a name change upon joining the family is Gir the cockatiel. Her original name was Ariel, but on the drive home my sister renamed her Gir, which fits so much better.

[Roxyluvsme13]

I try to use Disney names for all my pets :o, though there are a few exceptions.

Lily - TigerLily from Peter Pan.
Domino - 101 Dalmatians
Snow - Snow White

Jake was named by Michael, Fred was named after Freddy Krueger, Rosie I'm not sure if I got that from a Disney name or not, Hershey is named after the candy, Tallulah is a kooky kitty and needed a kooky name.

It always comes down to personality, lol, but Disney names are my favorite!

[Louie and me]

Our first dog came from a breeder who had called him Jesse. That didn't seem to fit but we wanted something that sounded similar so we called him Joshua.
The next two were rescues and we figured they had already had to learn one new name so we kept them the same.
Rocky was given up by his owners.
Louie was a stray given that name by the sanctuary.

I miss them all.

[Trinityagain]

For the current herd:

Zingo Furrburner--named after a dungeons and dragons character
Oatmeal--that is the color of his furr
Scooter--when he was still outside he would block the door. So we started saying "come on, scoot!"
Turbo--my husband had to pull her off of the turbo charger of his truck where she ran and hid. she was less than 1 pound and severly ill. He swears there is still kitten poop on the turbo charger :rolleyes:
Splotch--she looks like somebody took handfulls of paint and threw them at her, causing different splotches of color on her coat
GT--stands for Garage Talker. I had gone out one morning to feed the backyard cat and came in to tell my husband "the garage is talking to me"..took us 3 days to finally catch sight of her.
Momma--just fits, rescued with her kitten
Doodle--the kitten. she was born around the 4th of July. So...yankee doodle dandy came to mind....she gets called Bug a lot for some reason. and Buggly....
Itchy--all white cat with an apparent allergy to the sun. when she was still outside she would be crossing the street and suddenly have to sit IN THE MIDDLE and scratch....

[pomtzu]

I name mostly by personality, or country of breed-origin names. Myndi was an exception since when I got her at 10 months old, she already had the name of Mindy, so I just changed the spelling and added "Jo Kong" (from her mother and father's names) when I sent in her AKC papers.

Sparky - definitely a personality name. He was such a bright little flash of light in my life.
Sherbie - he was orange and white - orange sherbet
O.C. - "other cat", since Sherb was already here

RB Lhasas:
Tai Ling Soo - breed origin. Called her just Tai for short
Wei Wooli Bear - "Wei" was part of his grandmother's name, and "Wooli Bear" because he was big like a bear and fuzzy like the caterpillar. We always called him just Bear or Boo-Boo Bear
Scooter - he was a rescue and already named

RB Meezers:
Ming Blu - I thought it was pretty darn original at the time, but it's pretty common for Meezers as I have learned
Sam - he was already named when I adopted him, but a very fitting name for a Meezer
Suki - just Oriental sounding

Cockatiel:
Rocky - because he thought he (which turned out to be a she) was tough like Rocky Balboa

Mortimer was a BIG tuxie I adopted at about 6 years old and already named. It did suit him tho.

And some others way, way back:
Inky - black rabbit
Smokey - gray rabbit
B.R. (dwarf bunny rabbit)
Cinnamon - terrier mix named for her fur color
Dusty - gray cat
Spook - dark gray cat
Peanut - very tiny cat
Snuffy - my first ever cat which I acquired after I married. Hubby was in the Marine Corps at the time, and a "snuffy" in the Corps is an enlisted man of very low rank, so the name was quite appropriate!

I've forgotten a few - but you get the idea..............

[Litterati]

Plus there is the "official" name, the shortened nickname that I customarily use, and with my current trickster, on occasion, when he is being particularly fractious - or catlike - some words that are not his name and cross the line into the "expletive deleted" zone :rolleyes:

So here goes:

My first kitty (now at the RB) was officially named Dominick because with his tuxedo he called to mind a Dominican monk, and someone commented that he looked like a sleek dominatrix (gender notwithstanding.) But I called him Nicky or Nickythecat.

My current kitty is a silver gray tabby - ergo Dorian Gray - although I call him Dorry, Dorry-boy, whatever.

Both kitties were privileged to attain COTD status :D

[Randi]

Fister got his name when we visited him in the yard. John simply started calling him Fister, and it stuck. We didn't know that he was coming up to live with us and hadn't searched for names. Fister is what you call someone who you don't know the name of - I think like Buster in the US. I didn't like the name to begin with, but it grew on me. :)

[wolf_Q]

I have to add, after being a pet groomer for years I don't want to use common names even more because I get sick of hearing them so often. Half of the shih tzus are Oreo (if they are black/gray and white) or Gizmo. There's a lot of them named Bear too. Bella is a super common female dog name, any breed of dog. I can probably think of at least 10 black labs named Sadie (anyone know why that is? Seriously almost every dog named Sadie is black and usually a lab). Lots of dogs named Buddy, mostly small dogs. Lots of huskies named Koda, Dakota, etc. Oddly enough the past year or so we're getting a lot of girl dogs named Max, not sure what that's all about. Then of course we have the beagle named Beagle, yorkie named Yorky, why would you do that I guess I just don't get it. I'm not saying I hate any of these names just saying I don't want to name mine anything common. It's funny when somebody calls and says "Is Max done?" and we have to ask them their last name or type of dog because we have like 3 named that in one day.

[carole]

I like something a little different if possible, and i like to look up the meanings sometimes, lexie was actually named after an actress who played a beautiful dark haired girl in a scottish series i loved, so that is how she got her name, quite appropriate as she is black and i am scottish, also i later found out it means defender of mankind, hmm well yes i cannot quite see that from my lil girl .:D

Nikkita well she was called victoria, i wanted nothing to do with the names that horrible previous owner had called them, and i have always loved the song Nikkita by elton john so that is how she got her name.

Ellie-mae, well she was called duchess, and i used to call her duchella, so ellie came out of that, as again did not want anything to do with their previous names, and she was called that after the beautiful ellie-mae on the tv series hillybillies.

Ash was called after Ash in pokemon , my daughter name him, he was ash grey as well, so suited.

I even have names for my future cats, liberty and skylar or brandy are my chosen names at this stage.:)

[krazyaboutkatz]

Some of the names of my cats I decided to keep.
Storm- he was already named this at the Humane Society. I thought it suited him so I kept it.
Pearl- this was my grandmothers name so I wanted to keep it.
Ziggy Stardust- I liked it so I kept it.
Finnegan- I was going to change it but most everyone on PT thought that he looked like a Finnegan. Now I love it and so does he.

Sunny- I wanted a name that would go with Storm and I named Sunny before I even adopted him.
Sky- he was named Herman which I didn't like at all. I took one look at his sky blue eyes and Sky became his name.
Starr- he was named Sammy but I wanted a weather theme for my cats so he became Starr.
Pepper- he was named Chocolate but I didn't like it. He was very active, full of pep, sneezed sometimes, and was black so I named him Pepper. I had no idea just how common this name was.
Alani- he was named after the desert Tunami. I was looking at a list of names for orange cats and I saw the name Alani which is Hawaiian for orange blossom tree.
Blaze- he was named after the desert Sahara. I always liked the name Blaze and it also suits his personality.
Colby- he was named Cricket and I wanted to name him an orange cat name. For some reason the name Colby came to mind. He took to it right away.
Radar- he was named Chubbs because he's always been a chubby kitten. A PT'er suggested Radar because of his big ears and I think it really suits him.
Reece- he was named Finnegan and I couldn't have another Finnegan. I always liked the name Reece so this became his name.
Rory- he was named Chunkster. Since he's such a red colored cat, I thought that the name Rory would suit him and it does. He's m red little devil.

[Steve Arnold]

I've only had two pets as an adult. Oberon and 13 both are named for shows I've done. I played the role of Oberon (Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream) in high school, and 13 is named for the musical by Jason Robert Brown, which I directed.