When I acquired my cat, he was butt ugly. So, I named him after Billy Bob Thornton. How was I supposed to know he would grow into a beautiful man? Plus, he has a big fluffy tail. Now I wish I’d named him Orlando Plume.
My dog was named after the town we got him in. Sometimes, when he’s real happy, he lays on his side and kind of spins on his head and makes a “woo, woo, woo” sound. So, I wish I’d named him Curly.
My hairdresser named her dog Askem.
“Hey, what’s your dog’s name?”
“Askem.”
Kitty!
I first read the subject as “I wish I’d named my penis something else…”
And of course I clicked on it anyway. Maximilian and I are going to leave now.
We picked up a stray chihuahua about 3 years ago. According to the vet, she was about 4 months old, had a leg that had been broken and healed incorrectly, and was a couple of days away from death from starvation and dehydration. Ugliest damned dog you’ve ever seen in your life! She was so pitifully ugly that we gave her the regal name of “Lady” in hopes that she’d grow into it.
Nope - she’s still ugly, but she’s devoted to my daughter so we kept her!
I offered my daughter $20 to let me name her dog “Evelyn”. (That’ll make sense to the Zappa fans around here.) But she stuck with “Missy” anyway because that was the dog’s name at the pound.
I also used to have a dog named Roger.
Ungh.
my first dog, as a child, was Dixon Warensville Von Storerheim, and was born of the happy union of Finkledorf’s Falcon’s Faveta and Orbit of Heying Teckle.
So maybe Missy’s not so bad. :rolleyes:
Does ‘Missy’ object to small two-legs playing with the piano? 
I still want to name my next dog: “His Grace, the Cardinal Fang.” And I’ll call him “Gracie” for short.
I have pre-owned birds: Steve Yzerman and Zazu. Both talk about themselves in the third person, and you can’t change their names. They also name people. Steve has named me “Dear”, but Zazu has named me “K’pbzzau”. I can’t even pronounce that. I think I would settle for changing what my pet has named me. ( They are both African grey parrots. Apparently this sort of thing is normal for this species.)
Are SURE she isn’t a Mexican sewer rat?
Hell, when I first got my dog (a Maltese), I was going to name her Kiwi because my friend suggested it. But in the car, on the way home (we got her at Collingwood, a town 2 hours away from Toronto), my brother and I were thinking of different names. My mom suggested Cherry because she says it sounds better when she’s calling Cherry in Korean (please don’t ask why). So, we named her Cherry and she hasn’t answered to anything else since.
No, my brother and I did not try to dye her fur red. My friends asked me to when I told them what I named her. I should’ve named her something like Cotton.
Allow me to take this opportunity to show off my mutts. I just uploaded those pics, so someone’s gotta look at 'em.
Ahem.
Flash got his name from the pound- and it fit so perfectly I didn’t want to change it when we adopted him. The guy’s an orange streak if there’s a ball involved, and he’s scarily bright.
Two-Tone got his name from his coloration and his yodel. One of his nicknames is “FrankenDog”. He’s not too bright, but he IS enthusiastic.
Boo’s the baby. Princess Boo, Boo-Baby, you name it- the world revolves around her. She’s cute, and she knows it.
Previously, I’ve also had two parakeets- Orville (wings’re clipped- it’ll never fly), and Pepper (for her coloration). Also two cockatiels- Moose ('cause he was so damn big, and his comb looked like it could use some mousse), and Turtle (was going to be Squirrel, for obvious reasons, but she didn’t like to come out of her cage, and had tortoise-shell markings).
Names are important. 
Very true. Next dog I have will be named “Wallflower” or “Delicate Rose”. Spanky is a Spanky, even if he’s a little more… sedate… My Valen lives up to his name (he’s my dog not born of dog, B5 fans will understand…), and that’s not a bad thing. Zap, however, is as wired as her call name and registered name imply, and Pirate, well, he’s FIERCE, m’kay? He’s a thief, he’s cranky, and he loves himself some wenches.
Names ARE important. Mind you, all our pets are living up to their names… so maybe it’s all our fault…
We named my dog Kelsey. We wanted an Irish-y name, cause the three of us kids have Irish-y names. My dog is male. Our justification was Kelsey Grammar of Cheers/Frasier–if he could be named Kelsey and be successful, then why couldn’t my little silky?
It doesn’t help that he looks so cute and pretty. Although I guess he doesn’t really care when people (even the vet!) mistake him for a girl.
Princess Penelope Prissypants seems to think it is bedtime. So I’ll be loggin off.
In a momentary fit of gothness, I named a cat Thanatos. He spent the next eight months trying to kill me. Kid you not–I still have scars.
When we got him fixed, the vet offered to give him an ID tattoo inside his ear. The ankh ink we got him was unfortunately no help in toning down his murderous impulses.
He eventually ran away to live with a neighbor lady. A week prior she had showed up at my door with him insisting that I keep “this son of a bitch” away from her trash cans. Perhaps she liked dogs.
My cat is named Geek. I still like it’s awkward to shout. Now I call him Geeker-Squeaker as a term of affection, and KITTY when he’s acting up.
I have a friend who had to come up with a set of F names for a litter of puppies. Someone suggested “Firecracker.” She didn’t want to saddle any future owner with that kind of legacy. She had named a pup from an earlier litter “Cyclone,”
and from what I hear that dog did indeed live up to his name. :eek: I was pulling for “Fellatio” for my favorite pup. She ended up with “Felon” instead.
Thanatos. What a cool name. Was he a black cat at least?
My dogs are Ladybug (who I didn’t get to name) and Jasmine, who I did. They’re both as pretty and sweet as their names.
The cats are Molly and Punkin. Molly is very pretty and sweet, but kinda odd, so Molly seems to fit her. Punkin is orange and round. 
Trouble is gone now, but he was SO mean when he was young that Trouble fit him well. Rio is my newest baby, and he got his name from the song “[his]name is Rio and [he] dances on the sand…” What could be more appropriate for a cat?
When I worked in a pet store I got to hear the odd names that people would give pets.
(Aside, don’t name your iguana “Iggy” or your python “Monty”, you are not being even vaguely origonal. An exotic animal vet that I knew through the store, told me that something like 60% of all iguanas and pythons bear those names).
One in particular that I recall was a amazon green parrot (I forget which type) that the owners had allowed the kids to name...Inspector Gadget. I kept wondering if the bird was thinking "Yeah great, wonderfull, I just gotta LIVE with that name for the next 60 years or so!"Nice looking trio of dogs!
::me want dog::
We have a greyhound whose call name at the track was Idol. We kept it.
While he is extremely handsome and can strike a show-dog pose at a moment’s notice, Spaz would be a more appropriate name to describe his personality. ‘Maybe when he’s older’ … I keep thinking, but he’s 7 already so I don’t know when, if ever, he’ll calm down.