Has anyone ever had cats which are almost always referred to by a nickname despite having an official name? Following are some I have been associated with (official name - “nickname”):
Rusty - “Rustipher”
Izmerelda - “Izzie”
Spooky - “Pookers”
Apache - “Patches”
I am given to understand that a cat has a name that the family use daily, but also a name that’s peculiar, and more dignified. How else can he keep up his tail perpendicular, or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
I sure did. My now deceased Twinkles, a middle age cat abandoned by a neighbor, was always addressed as “Twinkmeister.”
Eg., “Here comes the Twinkmeister.”
Bear makes rude noises if I refer to him as ‘bay bay bearykins’
Meeko is often referred to as Miss Meekers.
Several of my cats are/were known mostly by nicknames.
Sonata is “Fred.”
Grace was “Boo.”
Tessa is “Bug.”
Nabby is “Nabbers” or “Nab-Tab.”
Clarice is “Big Fuzzy.”
Meep was “Meeplet.”
Tenshi was “Mr. Kitty” or “T-Man.”
Ozzy was “Ozz-Paws.”
The rather rotund Wilson is known as Big Daddy, and his entitled sister Ruby is referred to as Queenie.
Max, of course, was Maxwell the Wonder Cat.
Shadow is Princess sometimes and Little Girl other times (she’s not all that little any more, especially across the butt, but don’t mention that if she can hear you).
Francesca is “sweatheart” or “sweetycat” or “purrball” or “cat”.
Quoqo was sometimes “scaredycat” or “stupid”
Querty is just Querty. But she’s my daughter’s cat, my daughter calls her other stuff.
Well, the naming of cats is a difficult matter. It isn’t just one of your holiday games.
As for me:
San Francisco became Frisco.
Denver became Denny.
Shiloh became Meeper.
Fiona became Fionabear.
There have been others, but the above will do for now.
Quazar aka Quazy Cat
I once had twin orange boys. I named them Sky and Andy. My friends called them “that one” and “the other one” indiscriminately since no one could tell them apart except me. Soon, that just became their shared names. I knew which one was which - I called Sky “that one” and Andy “the other one” and I never used their real names again. It made for some interesting conversations when I talked about them.
I had a black cat named Wicca. My boyfriend called her Devo. All our friends called her Devo, too. Which was kind of weird because she was my cat. But she never had a problem with it; though, I think she preferred her real name.
When I was a kid, we had a cat named Pokie. When he got to be ten or eleven years old, I started calling him Pops. Before long, the rest of the family followed suit.
Of our current cats, there’s Irving, who is a small cat. I call him “little buddy” or “little dude” more often than his real name. His sister Ophelia is often referred to as “Miss Priss.” I used to call Rocky “fat boy,” but he’s slimmed down a bit, so it no longer fits.
Vienna is the only cat who comes when I call her. Except she thinks her name is “Meowmeowmeow.”
Walla - Milo who looks like a koala
Loki Banana, Loki Bum - Loki, who once proudly brought in a banana peel like it was a fresh mouse
Olli, Olliphant, Lolly, Oliver Squirrel - Oliver, who’s tail is very squirrel-like
My cats suffer through a variety of nicknames. Zoey is often called “Zoloft” since she is a mood enhancer. Dimitri is Didi or Smoke Demon.
I always wanted to name a pair of cats after common military acronyms, SNAFU and FUBAR. Obviously their nicks would be Snaffy and Fooey.
We brought two kittens into the house from outside a few months ago. We named them “Opal” and “Willa” but I always joke to my wife that we named them too early, as personalities and habits have emerged since then,
Willa - “Stinky” or “Squeaky”
Opal - “Chatty Cathy”
Hopefully the reasons for those nicknames are obvious.
Collectively I refer to them as the “peeps” because that’s the sound they make all the time, to us and to each other. There’s something adorable happening around my house all the time.
We have two adult cats, but they’re just Whitney and Pixie.
Snowball - Kitty Boy or KB. Even when he was tipping the scales at 19 pounds. :eek:
(In that era we had cats with weather-related names starting with “S”. Plus: Simpsons reference!)
Oliver & Sylvia became Ollie & Silly (which worked because Sylvia was not a wise cat)
Topomax - Max
Susan - Kitty
Bullet - Bully
But Guillermo The Relentless is always Guillermo The Relentless.
Same with Chicken, Skittles, Maus, Sambo, Merlyn, Morgan and Arthur
When I adopted Charlotte, she was a tiny kitten (as seen in my icon) and that seemed like too big a name for such a little thing, so I called her Baby Charley. I continued to call her Charley even after she got bigger. She’s 5 1/2 now, 15 lbs, and still Charley. Not even an ear-twitch if I try addressing her as Charlotte.
Anne has always been Annie or Annie-pie.
Emily might be Em, Emmy or Emmy-ki, but I have used her actual quite often too.
There is also an extensive list of other nicknames that change and evolve over time that have nothing to do with their given names.