I’m a cat person (duh) but my ex was allergic to cats. I hate dogs. Ex wanted a pet that was cute and somehow got it into her head that she wanted a bunny rabbit. Not just any bunny rabbit, but one that was that awesome BLUE/GRAY color and she wanted to call him/her “Blue”.
Well…As she and I were walking back to the apartment, I saw, in the bushes next to the community pool, in Miami, a very small bunny. “Hey there’s a bunny,” I said. With the help of some neighborhood kids (who would NOT be keeping the bunny!), we wrangled her up and kept her…
Baker’s name is Baker because we were fostering 4 kittens and he would make happy feet if anyone even looked at him. The others were Alpha, Charlie and Delta. They found homes, but most people don’t want long-haired black males. Our Bakerboy was a reject, but rejects are pretty cool.
Lucky came to me declawed and shot in the mouth and fixed. Oh, and one ear was shredded. What else could I call him?
Steve got his name because Rico wrote a song for him. Sorry for the mindworm…but not really.
My dog’s name was very prosaic: She was a white Havanese (small and very shaggy) who loved to run and play in the snow. So I named her Snowball.
My cat I found when Snowball was six and he was only about eight weeks old. He took an immediate liking to her and loved jumping all over her and playing with her tail. This drove her nuts (I don’t think she had even seen a cat before; the first time they met, she was so uptight she started crying and farted) and none of her protests would drive him away. So I named him Pepe, after Pepe Le Pew. Not because he looks like Le Pew (he doesn’t, not at all) but because of the way he kept hitting on her even though she clearly didn’t appreciate his attentions.
She came to at least tolerate him eventually, and he continued to adore her until she passed away at the age of 18+ last February.
Stripe was a local feral kitten who took up residence in our back yard. He is a mackerel tabby, and was most often known as “that striped cat in the yard.” When he came into our home, the name stuck, but was shortened to simply “Stripe.”
Hope came from a litter of three kittens. The mother cat’s owner named the kittens Faith, Hope, and Charity.
Fiona’s name was chosen by my ex-wife, who said it was just a nice name, and suitable for a little female cat. I still suspect that she chose it because one of the Shrek films was popular at the time.
Shiloh came from a farm on the Old Shiloh Road.
Denver and San Francisco have passed away, but they came from a litter where all the kittens were named after cities that have NFL teams.
Two young neighborhood cats chose me (probably because my roommate put food out for them). The boy had symmetrical black and green (very dark grey) circular striping, so of course I called him Roarschach. The girl (now pushing 16) has those lines leading away from the corners of her eyes that reminded me of ancient Egyptian eye make-up, so I named her Nefurtari (a princess I was enchanted by in a book by Stuart Gordon) – I have since learned the name means something like “beautiful companion”, and she is indeed a pretty kitty.
Little Bit = He was the runt of the litter when he was small. Grew up to be our biggest cat.
Amy Lynn = I think my parents simply liked the name. She knew she was in trouble when she got her whole three names said to her, just like a kid.
Smoky = A mean old black and grey tomcat, the name’s a bit self-explanatory
Andrew = I had a minicrush on my brother’s best friend at the time. His name was Andy.
Tangerine = An orange tabby, yet another self-explanatory name. We often called him “Tang” or “Tingy-tang”
Bianca = My brother named it after a cat in Disney’s “The Aristocats” though they don’t look anything alike (I always hated this name). Her nickname “Booger” because of the grey spot by her nose wasn’t endearing to me either.
Sean = He had this name at the shelter and we liked it because Irish.
From now on I’m likely going to stick to “real” names (most of the cats were named by us when we were kids, and when you’re 6 “Smoky” seems like a great name), but they might end up being some old-fashioned or mythological sort of names too. Always had a fond spot for “Maximilian”
Our came prenamed. His name given to him at the pound was Zuk. He was an owner surrender, so I don’t know if that was his original name, or one just given to him by the pound, but we kept it. I have no idea where the name comes from, but I do know “żuk” means “beetle” in Polish, and is also a type of truck made in Poland.
My last cat was a stray who wandered into my parent’s garage. I named her Raido, the Norse ‘R’ rune which means ‘ride’ or ‘journey’. Unfortunately, I had to get rid of her two years ago because she was utterly destroying my apartment by peeing everywhere and was getting violent.
Maggie was a stray in my sister’s friend’s garage. Her middle name ‘Ananke’;
“In Greek mythology, Ananke /əˈnæŋkiː/, also spelled Anangke, Anance, or Anagke (Ancient Greek: Ἀνάγκη, from the common noun ἀνάγκη, “force, constraint, necessity”), was the personification of destiny, necessity and fate, depicted as holding a spindle. She marks the beginning of the cosmos, along with Chronos. She was seen as the most powerful dictator of all fate and circumstance which meant that mortals, as well as the Gods, respected her and paid homage. Considered as the mother of the Fates according to one version, she is the only one to have control over their decisions.”
My sister named her dog “Chance”, because he was quite literally about to be taken to be put down when she saw him.
So there are more ways to denote this, creatively, than just “Lucky”.
Just putting it out there for any future considerations.
My oldest daughter named Miso because at the time she was naming all our cats Chinese food names. Her brother Wonton passed away earlier this year and they’re the last of that family.
Not long after we lost Wonton a little gray undernourished kitten showed up in our yard. We named her Mouse.
Then Blackitty Raven showed up, looked just like a famous neighborhood cat we all loved named Blackie. She started out as Blackie Junior and the rest just attached itself.
Not long after that we found another kitten trapped in the vines in the back yard. She was probably feral and stayed terrified of us for about a month after we brought her in. I started calling her Meep Meep because of her little scared cry. It stuck, and a year later she’s still Meep.
Buddy was a dog I met at Petco at one of those “Last Chance Rescue” adoptions. I had no intention of getting a dog, and certainly not paying for one when strays are so common but our eyes met and I fell in love. He didn’t have a name so I called, “Come here little buddy” and Buddy he has remained for seven years now.
Last winter Buddy was out running in the yard and brought in a Chihuahua friend who never left. My daughter named him Loki because he was always running around getting into trouble.
My roommate adopted a cat and dog at the same time and named them Mary and Jane. You can guess what he’s referring to there. Later he took in a dog already named Missy and it suits her.
The two current cats, Zippy and Marla, had those names when we picked them up from the shelter. Our previous cat, Thomas Hewitt Edward Cat (T.H.E. Cat), got that name because there was absolutely no place in the house he couldn’t break into if he wanted to.
My first dag was named “What” because I like to do the Abbot and Costello routine at the vet’s.
Then we got a cat which I named “Huh” just so I could zing the the vet when she asked, “What’s your cat’s name?”
Later we got another dog “Idono” (I don’t know).
And after the era of Idono we got another dog which I wanted to name “Huzaskin” (who’s asking). I was overruled by my lovely wife. She named the dog Buster which is a sucky name. Instead I called him Bubba, a name that stuck with him and one which I very obviously like.
I’m not allowed to name pets any more.
