I keep rats. They’re social critters, so you keep them in sets, and mine therefore tend to have theme names.
The first pair we kept communally in a shared apartment. They were named Phoenix and Miles, because we’re complete dorks who play a lot of video games. Miles was amusingly fussy about how his nest box was arranged, and would spend quite a lot of time “redecorating” by bulldozing things around with his tiny rat head.
The next batch was a trio, who were named Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, but were usually called ADVENTURE RAT!, Neuroti-rat, and The Corpulent Ratball. They may or may not have known their names, but they all had quite definitely knew their species. We sat down to watch the movie “Ratatouille” once – a film wherein the word ‘rat’ is used about once every forty-five seconds – and they all went berserk whenever they heard it.
After I moved, I attempted to get a pair of rats, but ended up with four of them when the rescue league couldn’t place the last two brothers. I asked my exceedingly nerdy flatmate for suggestions, and he promptly started naming off bridge crew from the Enterprise. He never could tell them apart, but I did know which label went to which rat – the name Kirk, for example, was applied to the one I had to keep fishing out of my bra. Bones was the grumpy one. Spock was the giant shy one, and Chekov was a slightly smaller Kirk-lite. I dressed them as the Avengers for a costume party once: Costume success!
Currently, I have a set of three albino girls. They’ve been named Yuki, Edelweiß, and Bianca, but I’m already calling them Yukki, Eddie, and Binky. They don’t care much; they’re still young enough that they’re just now realizing that when I open their cage it means I’m going to give them something awesome, like attention, or candy wrappers.
