If you have a chocolate lab, don’t name her/him Cocoa. If you do name her/him Cocoa, don’t think you are being clever, and don’t expect to get the right chocolate lab back when you go to the kennel and say, “I’m here to pick up Cocoa”.
Don’t name your dog Bear. If you get a pet bear, please do name him Dog, just to balance things out a tiny bit.
Names I do like:
Historical figures. Especially if you have a lot of pets you can’t tell apart - just name them after a long line of numbered kings. “This is my goldfish Henry IV. Henry II is hiding under the “No Fishing” sign.”
Foreign words. Pick a language, and figure out how they say “adorable sugar pie”. That way, you can always coddle your pet without sounding like. “My stallion’s name is Liebste Zuckerliein*. He’s a grand one isn’t he?”
*Beloved Little Sugar, if my dusty old German skills serve me.
I’ve had a parakeet named cricket, and our dog was Willy.
My brother used to tell people his name was 'Jesus Christ". He would demonstrate…
“JesusChrist, come here!” Willy would come.
“Jesus Christ, go lay down!” Willy would lay.
It was a frigging scream, because Mom did that ALL the time, she would get all frustrated at Willy for being underfoot, and she would say: “JESUS CHRIST!, would you go lay on the mat!”
She was always totally MORTIFIED whe my brother did that.
Boris, I once had an iguana for which I couldn’t think of an appropriate name. I went to the pet store to fins a heaver dish for his cage, since he kept turning over all the ones I had. I found a big heavy-bottomed ceramic one, but it said “DOG” on it. He wasn’t a bear, but I named him Dog.
My black lab / golden retreiver mix is named Katie…short, simple, it works. (Incidentally, her coloring is almost all black, white marks on her chest and chin that have spread as she’s gotten older, but all the fur on her back is a mass of tight curls. Has anyone ever seen this in a lab/golden mutt before?)
However, in high school I had a friend named Katie. This made for interesting conversation when a bunch of us were hanging out at my house:
“AAAAIII!!”"
“What?”
“Katie’s licking my ear!”
<smack>
“No, wait…”
This seems like a good place for my debut…
Favorite pet names: a basset named Bogart,
a young pup of mysterious origin called Armageddon as a tribute to his decorating flair, a cat named Clarence(that suited him so admirably) ,and a Great Dane named Penny Royal.
