Why Pets' Names?

[sandragonfly]

Hey there! I am posting this exciting thread....(hope not only for me! :)) I would looofve to know why you call your pet those name(s)...because of...? Personality? Just Being Creative? Colour? In Memory of..? Experience(s)?

I have a dog who is Mocha and a cat who is Zephyra... I'm gonna tell you my reasons so we will be even! ;)

Mocha..is because her color (black, darrrkk brown) is almost like mocha(coffee)...and her previous name was 'Lady' in SPCA. Yes, she may be a lady but Mocha suits her as well! Named by my sister...

Zephyra is because... One day, we, me and my brother played a game -hangman...He picked out a word, "Zephyr" which means 'wind'..'breeze'.. and that unforgettenable last word that HE taught me just kept on popping inside my mind because we never had a brothership since that last game...and I miss him so much, so I thought I'd dedicate that word to my dream black kitten "Zephyra" so I can remember him everyday and be able to touch a real heart of his. Gee, hope this isn't bad to hear! Ok....I would love to hear yours, meow!

[neko1]

Neko cause it means 'cat' in japanese, Cookie cause she's black and white like an oreo, Pumpkin cause she's orange, and Tama is named after a cat in Fushigi Yugi.

[Fuzzy317]

Of our 7 pets plus 1 foster, we gave names to 5 of our pets, and are trying to get a new name for the foster.

My fiancee had Eli and named him before I came into her life, so I don't know why he was named that.

Sassee was rescued from a puppy mill, and she was given the name to try and liven her up some, it didn't work. :( She is more layed back that I am :eek: if thats possible. :D

We named Ginger because of her color, and the name seemed to stick.

We are still trying to come up with a new name for our foster DJ. I will probably start a thread asking for suggestions.

Jackson and Rosie are still using the names they were adopted with.

I take none of the credit (or blame) for naming Twidgit. She was named by my fiancee, as a combination of twit and igit, due to how she was as a kitten.

I gave 3 potential names for one kitten, and my fiancee picked Ashton.

[primabella]

well, my sister had recieved a beanie baby puppet from her friend as a gift and his name was rocket, so when we got our bird, we named the male after him. :p sky got her name because of her sky blue color. we chose mickey just because we all thought it was a cute name. no particular reason. but, i did notice on the net that the name "Miki" means "polar bear" in Inuit. cool..

=0)

[lv4dogs]

Nanook: (white shep mix) means polar bear in eskimo language

Raustyk: (pronounced rustic, a rottweiller) is short like the "old style" rotts were and rustic means old, also her red markings are a rust color. I just spell it fancy.

Chaos: (my ferret) is total chaos!

Togette: (a rescued chocolate hooded dumbo rat) I wanted a name that started w/ a T & I had "to go get" her, I just spelled it fancy

Lil' Love (lilac hooded dumbo rat) Is small and full of love!

Crazy Horse: (aguti standard rat) Looks kind of like a horse w/ her color & her ears and she is CRAZY!

Aenka: (albino dumbo rat) means white in japanese

Kenda: (lilac hooded dumbo) means magical powers in dakota native american and her attitude is magical. It also means downy haired in some other language (I have it written down somewhere but can't find it now) and her hair is soft like downy softner LOL

Gillian (lilac self dumbo) means girl in Teutonic

[Sara luvs her Tinky]

Tinky had her name before I even got her. The second Pet Detective movie with Jim Carey... in the movie there is a raven named Tinky... and when he is introduced to the raven he says... pleasure Tinky ... and I always thought that was a cute name so I new when I got my kitten I was going to name it Tinky..

Jupiter got his name from my sister... he was her cat at first... she named him from a song she liked called Drops of Jupiter...

[Aspen and Misty]

Chewy- Well umm, I;m not really sure why, maybe we should aks the remants of our chair legs, LOL
Teddy Bear- Cause he looks like a big old bear!
Huney- Cause she is Huney colored.

Cats
HOss- Long story....
Buddy- Cuase on Christmas my brother goes hey little Buddy and it just stuck
Smokey- Cause she is smoke colored
Misty- Cause she is all these colors but she has grey all over so her colors are like hard to see
Wiley- I'm not sure

Fish
Guy- We just always called him little guy
Kitty- Caue she is a cat fish
Spike- Cause he almost broke his bag that he came in cause he is so spiky
Godzilla- Cause he looks like a monster
Bella- Cause she is like a grey color and not very pretty so to make her feel better we named Her Bella for Buety

Chameleons
Peaches- Cuase my sister said we should name her peaches and then she asked her boyfriend what they should name her and he said Peaches

Poison Dart Frogs
Twitch, Big momma, and that other one- I don't know bout twitch but Big momma cause Females are larger then males

Jilly
Well I have always loved the name Jillian. So we named her that, but it was to long so we shortned it to Jilly, which she is also called Jilly Bean

Rats
Melony and Hope- I'm not really sure
Tundra- Because she looks like our old cat Tundra
Brook- I named her after my friend


Ash

[Cincy'sMom]

Before we saw sadie, we had her name narrowed down to Sadie, a name Ralph liked, after a dog that lived next door to him growing up and Panda, cause we knew she was black and white. Sadie just fit her much better.

Cincy is named for Cincinnati, where Ralph and I went to school and met :)

[Christiansmommy]

Dandylion...b/c i thought it was cute and sweet sounding...just like her and I really liked Dandy for short...and being that she is of the feline species...lion fit well too :) She is just Dandy...I know that sounds corny, but she is :)

[Twisterdog]

With all the dogs at the humane society, plus all my rescue dogs ... and all my dogs, I've probably named close to a thousand dogs in my life, seriously.

My favorite thing to do with the shelter dog is either pick a letter ... January all animals names start with "A", for example ... or to name a litter of puppies names with a theme. Here are some I can think of offhand ... we had a litter of "soda pop" cocker mixes - Pepsi, Shasta, Dr. Pepper, Sprite, Mt. Dew, Cola. We had a litter of OES mixes called the X-File Dogs - Xena, Xerox, Xuxa, Xerces, etc. We have named litters after flowers - Pansy, Petunia, Daisy, Daffodil, Rose, etc.

After a while you start to run out of names. Right now we are on a "Cities in Wyoming" theme ... Cheyenne, Casper, Lander, Orin, Newcastle, Kaycee, Muddy Gap ... the next two I'm naming Ten Sleep and Meeteetsee. ;)

Now, my own dogs ... most were already named when I got them. I kept their names, even though I hate most of them - Lucky (boring!), Pepper (boring!), Jack (more boring!), Georgie (ridiculous!), and Thunder (that one's ok I suppose, but it doesn't really fit her).

The ones I named:

Queenie - she is an old Australian cattle dog, formerly called the Queensland Heeler. Plus, I thought Queenie sounded like a name an old cowboy would name his old cow dog.

Lacie - it fits her. She's a frou-frou little dog. Plus, I liked a song that was popular when I got her by Lacie J. Dalton.

Keito - my sister and I were eating Taquitos at Jack in the Box when we were naming him, and just decided Taquito was a cool word, Quito was better ... and I just changed the spelling.

Wishbone - my son named him, for obvious reasons, he liked the Wishbone TV show, and our Wishbone is also a Jack Russell terrier.

Vanilla - her name was Priscilla when I got her, and I know a strange, irritating woman name Priscilla, so there was no way I was keeping that name. Vanilla or Chinchilla were the only things we could think of that sounded like Priscilla, and Chinchilla would be kind of goofy for a dog, especially a white dog.

Basil - It kind of followed the spice names ... Pepper, Vanilla, Basil ... plus he's quite the proper English gentleman ... just like Basil Rathbone.

[wolf_Q]

Smokey...I was 2 years old when we got him....I don't even know...I know my mom wanted to name him "Nibs" (after licorice?) but the kids (my sister/bro) wanted SMOKEY! How boring. :rolleyes:

Reggie...Reggie...Reggie....I remember we all sat around after we got him, thinking of names. I wanted to name him Lucky (that's why young children should never name the family pet lol) but my brother suggested Reggie. I'm not quite sure where he came up with it, but we all liked it...so we have REGGIE!

Nebo. Well, I was originally going for a black and white female husky, and the name was decided: Koda. Well, I didn't end up with a black and white female husky...I ended up with a red and white male. Hmm. A couple of days before I was cleaning my room and found and old paper. It was names my friend and I had written down to name the litter of puppies her german shepard had. I remember seeing "Nebo" and was like "Huh! I don't remember that....kind of a cool name....." (It is after a gorgeous mountain in Utah...Mt. Nebo...) I don't know, but the name stuck in my head. The next day I had him home my parents went to the store. They had asked me what I named the puppy. I said "Uhh...Nebo...I think..." Well when they came home with a nice new name tag it became official, so it's NEBO! :)

[Uabassoon]

I'm sure how Corkscrew got his name, the girl that I got him from said that when he was adopted from the humane socitey that was already his name so she kept it. And I really like the name so I kept it too.

Tibby got her name because when I first got her she meowed all night and kept me awake until 6 in the morning. So I thought I'd name her after an opera singer. I wanted to name her after Renata Tebaldi, but Tebaldi just didn't sound right so somehow it ended up becoming Tibby.

[titania]

Well we have/had...

Nando(a Savannah monitor) whose name is Swahili for Dragon

Moo Shu.. a Chinese water dragon named after the dragon in Disney's Mulan

Rex.. another water dragon named for the T-Rex

Shiv.. named after the Shivan Dragon

Myrtle, Yertle and Cindy Lou named after Dr. Suess Characters all Box turtles.

Draco.. named after both the constellation and the dragon in Dragonheart.. by far Draco is the sweetest snapping turtle ever.

Alice a box turtle named for Alice in Wonderland

Griz... which is short for Grizelda.. which is the name of the witch in Hansel and Gretel.. the name doesn't really fit her calm iguana demeanor but she is blind and we are afraid that she won't recognize us if we change it.

and The Muses.. 8 lucky goldfish that my Hubby couldn't bear to see me feed to the turtles... The muses are of course from Greek mythology.

[HoRsELUvR]

Midnight because he is black with little white hairs(stars)and Reese because she is peanut butter and chocolate colored.:)

[Cookiebaker]

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.

[slleipnir]

Josie, I got her name originally from a book I read, I really couldn't think of any names for her and remembered the book and thought it would be a cute name for her :]

Zeke. I watched the tv show "Tour of Duty" a lot before I got him, and I doubt anyone ever watched the show but theres a guy on it named Zeke and I thought it was the coolest name!

My cat, Smitten. I have NO idea what made me name her that..I don't even like it that much, I've always wanted to name a cat Mittens for some reason, and I got smitten out of Mittens and some S name..To tell you the truth I didn't realize it ment anything at the time :rolleyes:

[Kfamr]

I name my German Shepherd Pit Bull mix "Simba" because i loooooooooove The Lion King, my abosolute favorite movie. Little did we know, Simba no digs in the grass in the backyard for grubs!

[AmylovesMisty]

Well this is intesting...

When we got Misty she already came with a name and she knew her name so we decided to keep it!! She has a unusual marking on her belly;it is a capital T!! Then we put it all together Miss. T!! When someone called the rescue lady and told her she perosn must of said her name is Miss. T!!The rescue lady probably wote it down as Misty!! Very cool!!

[Leiloo]

I love the names and the reasons behind them.

Leiloo's (my labbie girl) name actually came from a bood I read many years ago. It means the "most perfect woman" And boy does she live up to that name :p Turns out that the movie The Fifth Element main character is named Leiloo (they may have changed the spelling though.)

Cats:

Pepper: neighbor came up with that name

Bandit: he's black and white and steals stuff, especially plastic bags.

Angel: my sister came up with that name. She was the runt in the litter and the vet didn't have much hopes for her surviving. My sister said she would survive because she had an angel watching over her. Most of the times she lives up to her name.

Chinese water dragon:

Jimmy, after my favorite singer Jimmy Buffett

[shais_mom]

Shaianne
My RB greyhound. Her name was Tara at the H.S. and there was a girl at work that I didn't get along with and didn't want that name!!! I liked the name Peta, which means golden eagle. But my sister said that it sounded like I would have named her after the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, so I didn't. I found the name CHEYENNE in a name book, and just changed the spelling.

Kylie
Was named when I got her. She was a year old when I got her and I just didn't change her name. I probably would have named her Polar (for polar bear since she is white), or Cirrhus (which is a form of a cloud).
Keegan
I had a whole list of names for her. And the night I brought her home, I was going thru the list of names. And when I got to Keegan, she looked at me. Sooooo I did it again, went thru the whole list of names. I did it I think 3 times and every time she looked at me. So I figured she picked out her name for me!!! But I wanted her to have a "fancy" name for her AKC paper's. Sooo her mom's name is Sweet Vidalia aka Sunny. And I used Sweet. And I used Shaianne in memory of her. And I used Grace in honor of my grandma, who adores Keegan and adored Shaianne.
(She cried when I told her) So her AKC name is Sweet Shaianne's Grace aka Keegan. :)

Sydney : his mom was called Darwin , so we took another Australian city we visited !

Maya & Inka : 2 names of Indian tribes . First we had Maya , and because she had such a sweet look , we wanted a "sweet-sounding-name" for her ! Of course , we needed another indian name for lil Inka ..!

Billie(rabbit) : My daughter choose this name because her teacher had a cat named like that !!:rolleyes:

Jasper(guinea pig) : the day we got Maya from the shelter , there was also a cat there named jasper ; we kind of liked the name !

[Beargirl]

hmmmm....two rats:
pink cause she is a white rat with pink eyes

chai cause we drink alot of chai tea

we just got a brand new rat today, we cant think of a name for her...so far she is "new baby"

and we have an aquatic frog, started out as a creative "froggie" now its psycho killer...yes that is literal, he likes it to be his aquarium and his aquarium only...:P