Delilah Underfoot - Named after a song by Queen about a cat. Underfoot because she is, especially at night when it’s dark and at top speed. It’s a wonder I’m still alive.
In the past I’ve had cats Rebus (named cause it sounded like a cat’s name), Pluto (big old Blue Russian, might be from Mickey’s dog). And dog’s Pokey (after the pokey little puppy), Rebel (cause she didn’t like strangers) and Bear (cause he kinda looked like one). My Dad also had a penchant for naming our rats after Spanish queens.
My big lovable lump of dog’s name is Bo. Not Beau, but Bo. This is a point of contention in my family. Apparently, I am the only member of my gene pool who does not associate the former with the phrase “body odor.”
We also have two lovebirds, named Beatrix and Benedick, after the characters in Much Ado About Nothing. Again, there is controversy surrounding the birds’ nomenclature; as it happened, my parents never got around to giving them names and, fearing for their mental health and imaging the financial stress future visits to the orinthopsychologist would cause the family, I decided that naming them myself was the least I could do. Except I never told anyone else. They’re still “the stupid birds who shred up the bottom of their cage like overzealous Enron employees” to mom and dad.
I’ve got two cats hanging around the apt these days and they have been named as follows:
[ul]
[li]Tabitha - my first feline was already named when she came to me. She was extremely creatively named I would say, especially considering that she is a tabby cat. [/li][li]Murphy - I get the credit for naming murph and the name was chosen after having the little ball of fuzz around for several weeks and realizing that fate had apparently chosen for him the role in life of being the creature for whom it seemed that anything which could possibly go wrong would be sure to do so… thus this particularly excellent ambulatory example of murphy’s law simply had to be named Murphy (and the years since have only proven the rightness of that choice over and over).[/li][/ul]
wolf189
Brachy:
D’oh! So sorry about Brat. Such a pretty bird, too. Are you ok? What happened?
Similarly, my bird was already named when I got him when he was nine. We thought "Murphy? Ugh. . . I wonder if we could change his na. . " Then he said “Murphyyyyy! Murphy! Murphy love you. Hiya, Murph!” Suppose not.
My late dog, Abby (as once seen on the Eurodopers page!) was named after my favorite soccer team.
A soccer team named Abby? Well, actually her name was Aberdeen, but we all abbreviated.
My first cat was named Zachias, after the Bible character who climbed up into the sycamore tree. The funny part was that the rest of the kids in Sunday school knew about my cat’s name, and we all used to sing “Zachias was a wee little cat…”
I have one pet, a white cat with one green eye and one blue eye, named Shan. He was named after the character Shan yos’Galan from Partners in Necessity (and other books in that series) due to his size, his coloring and his tendency to lull you into thinking he’s slow and stupid, and then running across the room at full speed to pounce on something.
Princess: My dog. I got her when I was ten years old (still have the old girl too!) and my mother suggested the name because it had been her favorite cat’s name. Being ten, I went along with the suggestion.
Pete: My brother’s dog. “He just looked like a Pete,” so says his master. We also at one point had a duck named Petie, and a rabbit named Peter so I’m thinking he just likes the name.
Claudia: my ferret. She was a nipper who drew blood as a baby, and I was still enamored by Interview With Vampire, so it was perfect.
Mocha, Lady, Halfie: The family cats. These are the final cats in a long ling of “food” named cats. I’m not sure why the tradition started, but Lady is “really” Lady Fingers and Halfie is Half and Half. Vets never understand Halfie’s name (" His name is Happy?"), though I suppose they’d be baffled by “Mochie” too(Mocha is only sometimes Mochie, but it’s always Halfie).
Small dogs tend to have LARGE egos. I have 4 yorkshire terriers. the oldest: General Pierre Gustave Tutant Beauregard ( civil war general) Beau was a fighter since birth. He was 1 of 5 pups ( rare for a yorkie) At 3 months old, Beau got in my moms’s purse. He weighed all of 1 pound. Within minutes he was lathargic. I rushed him to the vet and the vet said " This dog’s been drugged. Hmmm Of course i denied any and all responsibility * wink We checked the house and found that he ate 6 of my mom’s nitro glycerin pills. It was life or death and the little bugger pulled thru. He has since produced 2 sons. One named La Petite Garcon du Beau Zak ( little son of Beau Zak) and Maximillion du Beau of Orleans. Yes, they are tiny dogs, weighing 4 pounds each, but they have HUGE egos! I think they inherited it from their Mistress lol
Dwyr- my gray tabby, I saw this name in a scifi novel and liked it so I used it. I had no idea how to pronounce it and didn’t find out until much later it’s a welsh word. Oh, well.
Pixel- my orange tabby, so of course the name comes from Heinlein. He doesn’t actually walk through walls but he might eat one.
Queen Maeve- my black long-hair kitten. She was rescued and given to me by a friend who likes Irish names so I picked this one for her. It means intoxicating and she surely is. I also knew she was the imperious sort when, as a three pound fluffball, she chased my 12 and 14 pound males out of the room.
Previous pets include:
Drax- tabby, another scifi novel.
Nicky- small mixed breed dog; I was a kid when I named him for St Nicholas.
Christopher- budgie, named after my Mom’s budgie.
Jonathan- a pretty chartreuse budgie; I picked the name when I was about ten but I have no idea why.
Mia
Would you believe that my sister has a papillion named after the general as well? She calls him P.G. for short. She’s also got a cat named Jubal Early.
Brachy
Z was originally named Zima when I adopted her. A pretty name on it’s own, but I didn’t really feel like having a cat named after a marginally-trendy alcoholic beverage, so I shortened it.
Miss Dinah Prunella (a.k.a. Prune) was named by my grandmother. Don’t know the inspiration, but I’ve always liked the name.
My parents found Mac in an alley in Chicago a few years before I was born. He appeared to be a grey cat until he had a bath, during which he turned white. Hence his full name, Filthy J. MacNasty.
Tallapoosa was named after a town in Georgia; my dad does business with a company there.
Trigger was named for the saddle-shaped brown spot on his back.
I have a cat named Spock because I was a junior-high belated Trekkie dork when I named her, and hey, she has pointy ears!
I have two goldfish, only one of whom has a name. His name is Matzo, he’s Jewish. I decided this because my mother and I bought a bag of about twenty goldfish and he stuck out - he’s silver with a perfectly round orange spot on the top of his head that looks exactly like a yarmullke. Therefore he’s Jewish, and the first thing I could think of that was Judaism-culturally-related was matzo. Stupid, I know.
Before we had fish in the big fishtank, I had a guinea pig that lived there. She went through several names. She was a long-haired guinea pig, brown, black and white. I wanted to call her Jewel, my mom wanted to call her Godiva (for the hair). Eventually we just ended up calling her Pig for a long time, until I was preparing to move to college, and the res.life brochure said that the only pets allowed in the dorms were “fish in appropriately-sized tanks.” My mother and I joked that hey, the guinea pig lives in a fish tank. If we call it Fish, I can take it to school! So from then on until she died a while back, she was my guinea pig named Fish.
Thanks capybara, dwyr. Brat became seriously ill a week ago. He kept showing more neurological involvement, but the vet could only find an enlarged liver - no apparent infection. He lost the use of his legs on Tuesday and I just knew he wasn’t going to make it. I didn’t want him to die alone, so I brought him to work yesterday. He died cradled in the loose collar of my turtleneck sweater. My sweet baboo. No more “Whatchadoin?” when I come home.
This thread is good therapy for me to read. It’s very heartwarming to read the love for one’s pets. I should add the names of previous pets:
Hoybee: a big orange manx cat we had when I was just a tot. He was named by our neighbor, being her cat. We always took care of it when our neighbors were away, and finally my Mom said “He’s ours.” They said fine (we were good friends).
Anthony, Cleopatra, and Ringo: two goldfish and a catfish we got after Hoybee died. I think kiffa named them after the Taylor/Burton film came out (and she was a big Beatles fan).
Quasimodo: huge gray guinea pig also named by kiffa. Man, could he give off guinea pig calls when we opened the fridge!
Hilaire: our shaggy dog, picked out of the litter by me but again named by my sister. She was such a smart mutt. kiffa and I played hide-and-seek with her at the schoolyard until Hilaire got tired of it and walked home.
Ashley and Montague: two rat brothers. Finally I got to name pets! They were so gentle and used to groom a tiny strand of my hair together.
And finally, Kita, Ursula, and Kulta: my own dogs, now departed. Kita, my retriever, was already named. Ursula found us during an Idaho winter. She was a perk-eared dog with a winter coat and she looked like a little bear (Ursa). Kulta was my sweet golden retriever and the word is Finnish for gold as well as a term of endearment (sweetheart or darling).
Austen is named after my favorite author, Jane Austen. She’s an orange-and-grey tabby, 8 years old. I got her from the Humane Society two years ago.
When I brought my second cat home from the SPCA just a year ago, I was planning to name her Bronte, but even a short acquaintance indicated that she was not at all Bronte-like. After casting about for some other appropriate author’s name and not finding one that seemed right, I decided on a literary character name instead: Lucia, from E.F. Benson’s Mapp and Lucia novels. (Yes, that’s where my user name comes from too.) I picked it for that reason, and also because, even before I signed on here, I would sometimes call Austen “Miss Mapp” when she sat in the box window in the living room and spied on the neighbors from behind the curtains. So it kind of matched.
Lucia is a mostly white domestic short-hair with some grey patches. The vet estimated that she was about 3 when I adopted her, so she must be 4 by now.
Both of their adoption anniversaries are at the end of this month. I’m thinking of giving them a party and opening a can of tuna to celebrate.
Calliope- Our first dog, a Schnoodle. We got her from the pound and she was a bedraggled little thing. So we HAD to give her a pretty name. I pulled this one out of a High School Mythology class. (Also, Callie.)
Copernicus- Next dog, a Shetland Sheepdog. The Little Woman took an Astronomy course in college. This name stuck. (Also, Nicki.)
Lucy- A Jack Russell Terrorist. Usually when we get a dog we poke it around for a while and see what name fits. On the way home I asked (hypothetically) “What should we name you?” From the backseat two year old Soupo piped up “Lucy!”. It was supposed to be her provisional name, but it stuck. Probably derives from Lucy van Pelt as he was on a Peanuts kick at the time. (Also, Lucy Boots, Boots (I don’t know why), the Ridiculously Little Dog and the Little Woman refers to her as “YOUR Dog” sometimes.)
My sister has a Keeshound named Norton, after Ed Norton on The Honeymooners. Why? Because we were batting around “good dog names” and she said how much she HATED that name. She tried some other stupid name but the rest of us Sibs just kept calling him Norton. We won.
I don’t have any pets at the moment (though I really AM hoping to rectify that with a kitten or two soon). But for several years, I had a pure black shorthair cat named Sohco. He’s actually named after Southern Comfort. My sister had gotten a cat not long before I had, and named her Vodka. When my little black beauty came into my life, I decided he needed to be named after an alcoholic beverage as well. However, I couldn’t name it after my favorite, because… well, that’s Vodka. So I named him after another drink I enjoyed, and shortened it to something a little more managable. It’s gotten a lot of questions when people hear it, that’s for sure.
Parker and Litchfield are the cutest little turtles in the world. We got them before we moved to Park Slope, Brooklyn. The names both have to do with the area.
My husband and I had 2 cats, male and female.
They were his, though; I hadn’t picked them and didn’t care for them.
So…they had 5 kittens.
One I liked right away because it was a long haired light gray tabby.
The other 2 tabbies were dark gray.
It looked like fuzz!
So she became Fuzzy!
She’ll be 10 this year!
