Inspired by a current Bored Panda article. Figured we could use a bit of levity?
I used to work register at a drugstore, and I always asked anyone buying pet food for the name of their animal. Most memorable was a cat named “Jizz Bubble”. I didn’t ask for the backstory!
I currently have a rooster named Jeffery. His favorite paramour is Ghislaine. No need of explanation.
I also have a white chicken named Charmin, because she looks like someone just used her to wipe with.
Another white chicken is evidently at the bottom of the pecking order, frequently bloodstained. Her name is Final Girl.
Tonka, Goo, and Abbey kept the names they had at the shelter. Creamsicle was named because before she adopted us, we were like, ‘Oh, there’s that Creamsicle kitty!’
Findus was named after the cat in the Pettson and Findus books.
ETA: When I was little, my sister had a kitten named Ashley Roachclip.
One of our rats is named Rorschach, because he has black and white markings on his face that remind me of the mask that the character Rorschach wears in the Watchmen graphic novel.
My last rabbit was named at the shelter: Flip-flop. You wouldn’t think buns are tropical but the way they go berserk for bananas and pineapple, well, stay out dere way, mon.
As a youth I found a puppy under an old porch and dragged it home.
My Mother picked it up by the scruff of the neck and said “Aww, such a pretty boy”!
Yep. Named him Pretty boy.
My Daddy called him Floyd.
It was a few years before I understood.
My brothers would not go look for him. And he was often lost in the neighborhood or the patch of trees behind our house. They were not gonna call out “Pretty boy”. On repeat.
He was a decidedly ugly hound mix with a goofy ear. Not a pretty boy. At all.
I just remembered a great-great aunt who had the ugliest dog I have ever seen. She called him “Beauty”. Of course, whenever she’d call him, she would also have a cackling laugh. I once asked my mom, “Why does she call that ugly dog ‘Beauty’?” My mom pointed out that every time she called her dog, she laughed, suggesting she knew. Considering English was not her first language by a long shot, in retrospect it was funny.
When I was a teen we got a kitten who I named Jake. He was mostly brownish orange, with large white markings. His back end was all brown, except for his little nutsack, which was pure white. Even after he’d been fixed, there was no mistaking it. My dad started calling him “Snowballs,” and the name stuck.
When my stepmom was in her early 20s, she went to live with her godparents for about a year. That was fine, except her godparents had a cat, huge creature, named Luvvies.
My stepmom lived in terror of him. You could hear Luvvies as he strode down the hallway. Even with carpet.
When Luvvies claimed a bed, you didn’t argue with him. You just moved and slept elsewhere. And if Luvvies decided he wanted to prowl along the kitchen counters, you didn’t sweep him off with your arm. You got a broom and stayed well out of his reach.
Some years later after my stepmom had moved along, she asked her godparents how Luvvies was. They shared that sadly, they had had to put him down. Because he got mean.
There’s a mini-farm near us where they primarily do kids’ parties. They have lots of pettable critters - mini cows, donkeys, horses, alpacas - you get the idea. They also had 2 ducks (who were unfortunately dispatched by a fox) named Duck Norris and Quacky Chan.
Mrs. H and I have a tradition of naming our cats based on whatever was on the TV when we adopted them. Our Maui, for example, showed up at our house one day and announced that he lived there from now on. We were watching Moana at the time, and so we named him Maui.
We’re ditching that system for our next two cats, though. We’re going to adopt two male littermates and name one Biscuits, the other Gravy. So, Biscuits & Gravy.
Friends had a dog named Hecubus. They called him ‘Hecky’. Hecky needed a last name, so they assigned ‘Scremecky’. But they also called him ‘Hecky Pie’. So the dog’s full name was Hecubus Pie Scremecky.
I used to have, and my ex-wife still has, a shitzu mix named Stella (well, her name when she was first born was Babette, but it was changed to Stella by the friend who boarded her for a few weeks before we got her).
I decided shortly after we got Stella that her full name was Stella Bella Boo, because it’s fun to say.
And that’s why, to this day (she’s at least 14 years old) Stella’s nickname is “Bellsie”
