Phideaux.
our cats are Sheba, Rocky (rockefeller, roqufert, rockstar of s**thead, depending on the time of day) and DaBB (daddy’s baby boy) However, I have rescued and rehomed a few cats and they get very pretentious names to overcome their shabby beginnings. most noteworthy was Sir Wellington Bigsworthy Growsalot. (found in a dumpster in the bronx only 6 weeks old.) The new mommy kept the name and called him Wellie for short.
We have allready decided our next cat will be named Nigel. We just like the name.
Education-2 year technical degree
Middle-upper middle class
I currently have two cats, Kira (named after a Star Trek character) and Tyson (named after a boxer).
Formal dog naming conventions are actually kind of interesting. The AKC tradition of naming is really super weird, for example. It is not merely because of the rule about having original names (the same is true of Thoroughbred race horses, and they have totally different kinds of names). The convention is to have the (proprietary) name of the breeder’s “kennel”, like Sunny Acres or something, at the beginning or end of the name, plus something either romantic, taken from pop culture, or some kind of word play. So Sunny Acres Howzit Hangin would be within the naming convention, as would Blue Dream of Sunny Acres. But if you name your dog something outside the naming convention, the AKC folks will label you an ignorant outsider. Like, we registered one of our corgis as Prince Camaralzaman because we were pretty sure nobody had named a dog that. I knew the conventions – been going to dog shows since I was a child – but think they are stupid so that was my little comment. His real name at home was Luke.
The AKC (and other show dog registry) naming conventions arose from the fancy names given to shown livestock in England in the 19th century, which carried the name of the estate where it was bred: Rumsmeade Medallion is the kind of name you’d see for a champion bull. But once showing dogs became a middle class pastime all sense of classiness was lost and people just went wild with cheesiness. The names the dogs actually answer to are just the same as other suburban dogs.
Other dog societies have different naming conventions, and they are just as much a way to distinguish the in-group as the AKC’s. Working Border Collies have single syllable names taken from northern England naming traditions: Wisp, Ben, Don, Fly, Gael, Meg, etc. There are only about twenty names, used over and over. The registries identify individual dogs by their registration number. Other working breeds have developed other naming conventions; in the US many are simply registered as (owner’s last name)(call name), such as Jones Ted. Ranch dogs such as Australian Shepherds were and sometimes still are registered with the brand of the ranch: Rocking M Spur. Generally if you have a dog working at a distance you want a name you can shout clearly – hard consonants, simple vowels, one syllable – that doesn’t sound like a common command.
As for cats, I believe any animal that doesn’t know its own name can be named anything whatsoever. Just go all out. I never had a cat that didn’t come to kittykittykitty.
Middle class here. We have Boomer and Misty (beagles) and Brownie and Ginny (mixed breed cat rescues). Misty and the cats had names when we got them.
Boomer is the only one I got to name. The name is only remotely pretentious if you are a New York Yankees history geek. My wife wouldn’t let me name him Jetes.
My beagle has been named Darwin for the obnoxiously pretentious joke-reason during the entirety of my various climbs and dips through income levels. I’m not entirely sure if class distinction makes any sense in America, but if it did, I’m probably guilty of class-pet-namery.
Our pet’s names are Murphy and Dresden.
Nobody around here gets it, and can’t figure out why Murphy’s a girl cat.
Our cats are/were Cobalt and Rhodium (but Rhodium passed away this winter). I think that puts me firmly into the nerd-class.
My cat is named Caesar. This isn’t pretentious for two reasons:
- Caesar is the least obscure Roman emperor.
- She’s actually named after the salad. (Her middle name is “Chicken”.)
I’d call us middle-middle class, I guess.
Let’s see, when I was a kid, we had a black/copper Dachshund named Penny, and a red one named Duchess (my mom thought my “Princess” suggestion too precious and that was my 2nd choice).
As an adult, we’ve had mutt-dogs:
Mojo (after Mojo Nixon)
Binkley (after the Bloom County family)
Penny (came to us named thusly)
Cody (came to us named thusly; since I still think we’d find 666 under his fur if we shaved him, I kinda wish we could change it to Damien)
Our cat is named Jezabel, we got her with that name.
We don’t buy pets - closest I have ever been to AKC pets was my dad’s dogs, Tigetho’s Brass Tacks [tacky] and Tigetho’s Copper Penny [tiggy] and the black lab [can’t remember his registered name but we called him Par - my dad played golf.]
The history of my pets names
Rayhab - cat
RIF - cat
Jazz - cat
Freep - cat
Keeta - dog
Aspen - dog
Kahlua - dog
Not sure if they are “pretentious”
My uncle’s upper middle class. Both him and his wife have law degrees; he worked for the regional treasury/tax people.
Their dogs’ names have been Jaun (English Boxer; lord, gentleman, sir, mister, in Basque), Lagun (German Shepherd; friend, crutch, support, help, in Basque), Tana (Mastiff of the Pyrenees; short for Jacetana, she who is from Jaca, where she was born), Neska (girl, in Basque; Tana’s daughter), Gos (Catalan Shepherd; dog, in Catalan) and Pitu (small Chinese breed; short for Pitufa, she-Smurf*). Neska’s dad is usually called Tarzan, but he’s a show dog so he’s got an official name he probably wouldn’t recognize as his own.
Naming them mostly in Basque may sound pretentious, but these dogs happen to live in Euskal Herria and my uncle speaks Basque, so…
- not Smurfette. That’s la pitufita.
Yes. Some people will name a dog Spike while other people will name the same dog Squire Maldoon.
My former malamute had probably the most pretentious name on the list - “Morrissey”.
I’ve never liked the Smiths, but in his first week at his new home he’d start howling piteously and almost non-stop whenever he thought he’d been left alone (even if I was actually in the next room) and the name kinda followed.
Middle-class upbringing, for the record. I’m not a goth, but I live in that area of town.
Thinking on it, I did once name a friend’s budgies Hugin and Munin. Does that count?
I’m likely to be getting a couple of pups in about three months. Anyone want to put some names on the shortlist?
No pretentious names for them and I have no education to speak of. The theory must be true!
Our basenjis are Zephyr and Epilogue - pretentious, I suppose. In our defence, they came with the names as 3 year olds, so we didn’t like the idea of changing them. They usually answer to Zef and Epi, though.
Last time I took a cat in to the vet I said his name was Stokie, and of course they were all “Stokie Lastname?” and I was all yes stokie lastname because that’s kind of embarrassing, you know? Like I have fur babies. And then they were all “I don’t see him in here…” so I had to say it might be under “lord greystoke lastname”.
Learned my lesson with Captain - his name is really Captain Ernest Shackleton, but they don’t know that at the vet. Or the pharmacy.
Perhaps pretentiously, we wanted to name the little rough-and-tumble rural pit bull we rescued something that wouldn’t brand her as a monster (not “Killer” or “Spike”), so we went with something sophisticated and French: Simone.
My three dogs all have names, but I usually end up calling them Big, Little and New. I guess that says a lot more about my imagination than my class.