# Dog name translation from German **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 5, 2019, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dog-name-translation-from-german/835091 "2019-06-05T20:22:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Captain\_S\_itmagnet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b5ac83/32.png) [@Captain\_S\_itmagnet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_S_itmagnet)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2019, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dog-name-translation-from-german/835091/1 "2019-06-05T20:22:50Z")
Good day all For several decades our neighbour in Vancouver, who was born in Germany had a series of dogs. All the same breed. All of them named the same. Our running joke went from Jr. to the III to IV etc. The dogs’ names were all Loomby (spelling uncertain). The gent has long passed and I cannot find any translation online including spelling variants. Just curious what if anything this meant. Any takers? Closest I can find is a town in our province called Lumby (short “u”) so different pronunciation. I doubt that is the correct answer. Is it a German nickname perhaps ? Thanks CSM ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2019, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dog-name-translation-from-german/835091/2 "2019-06-05T21:37:02Z")
How sure are you that it actually means something? Or that they were named in German? Maybe they were all named “Lamby”. ---
**Author:** ![Fish\_Cheer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fish_cheer/32/17179_2.png) [@Fish\_Cheer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish_Cheer)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2019, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dog-name-translation-from-german/835091/3 "2019-06-06T06:03:40Z")
“Lumpi” (diminuitive of “Lump”, rascal) is or was a fairly common name for dogs in Germany. ETA: The German pronunciation of that would be close to what you describe, “loom-pee”. ---
**Author:** ![HeiLo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c77e96/32.png) [@HeiLo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeiLo)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2019, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dog-name-translation-from-german/835091/4 "2019-06-06T06:14:26Z")
The closest thing I can think of is “Lumpi”, a stereotypical dogs name that might derive from “Lump”: [https://www.animals-digital.de/tiere/tiername/Name/lumpi](https://www.animals-digital.de/tiere/tiername/Name/lumpi) As an aside, do you happen to know where he was from? Softening the “p”, as he seems to have done, makes me suspect he might have been from northern Bavaria. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2019, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dog-name-translation-from-german/835091/5 "2019-06-06T20:07:53Z")
Another vote for “Lumpi”. It is, or at least used to be, quite a common name for dogs, to the point of being a cliché. It’s a diminutive of “Lump”, which is a word - often a cute and endearing one - for a mischievous person. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_S\_itmagnet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b5ac83/32.png) [@Captain\_S\_itmagnet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_S_itmagnet)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2019, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dog-name-translation-from-german/835091/6 "2019-06-08T17:40:04Z")
Thanks for the replies. Mystery maybe solved. I can’t recall where exactly the gent was from. I do recall that despite having been in Canada for decades he sounded like a new arrival so any local inflection/ pronounciation from German origin was carried on. And each of the dogs was a “scoundrel”. I remember one would carry a large rock from the garden and drop it from the deck onto the Cadillac parked below. The gent never did change where he parked despite the multiple occurrences.