We have three guinea pigs and have never really attached names to them. We got the first one when my stepdaughter was pregnant and didn’t think she had room for a pet with a baby on the way, so we took her in. Her name was originally “Little Bit” but we never called her that, just “piggy”. Sometime later we got a second guinea pig to keep the first one company, so then they were “old piggy” and “new piggy”, or “big piggy” and “little piggy”. Then we discovered that “new piggy” was pregnant when we got her from the pet store, so when she had her pup (just one, thankfully) she became “mama piggy”, and the baby (who is pretty much full-grown now) is “baby piggy”.
Good lord, growing up I came up with new names for my dog regularly, she didn’t seem to mind. Everyone around me thought I was insane, but she always knew when I was calling her name. I do this with my cats, too; I’ve come to terms with being odd.
Which language?
I collect words for “cat” in different languages, and Google tells me there are something like twenty-four of them in common use in Cameroon.
Heh - I’ve enjoyed reading these responses. Seems like perhaps it was just due to the quirkiness/individual circumstances of the two customers.
BTW: I have a cat called Howard. It’s a long uninteresting story.
In Spain it depends on the kind of pet. A dog or a cat will likely get a name; the ferrets my BFF’s dad kept were called “the big one”, “the thin one” and “the short one”; my canary had a name, but I’ve never known anybody who named their fish and often people who have more than one bird don’t really name them but, like our friends with the ferrets, just describe them.
Once during a trip up a mountain when they were in summer camp, a dog started following the gaggle of kids and teachers around. The teachers said “don’t feed him and he’ll go away”. Of course, someone went and shared a bit of salchichón… and someone else a bit of chorizo… aaand the dog ended up down at the camp being fed everybody’s scraps. Since it was clear from the start that he wasn’t going home with anybody, they just called him Perro, which is a word every Spanish-barking dog knows. They asked the farmer who owns the field the camp was on whether he knew someone who’d want a well-behaved dog; the farmer took one look at Perro, checked that he did indeed know his basic commands (including basic sheepherding) and kept him. Renamed him Amarillo, yellow, which he was.
There are something like 200 languages in use in Cameroon. Diverse place!
Paatu (kind of like “PAH-too” but with the “ah” elongated) is a commonly used contraction of “Paaturu” (“PAH-too-roo” with a rolled “r”) which is Adamaoua Fulfulde for “cat.”
I think there’s a big difference between animals who are intelligent/aware enough to recognize that they have names and animals that we name just to tell them apart, like hamsters. If you have three dogs and name them Dog, Mutt, and Canine, those might not be very good names, but they are names, and if you use them, the dogs will figure it out. It doesn’t matter what you name your fish. They will never know that Wanda swims twice as fast as Sylvia, no matter how hard you cheer from outside the tank.
And animals bright enough can recognize nicknames in addition to their own names; I call my girl dog “girlie,” “missy,” etc., and her brother never looks up; I call him “baby” and “buddy” and she doesn’t glance my way. They know who’s who.
The only reason my cat has a name is because my wife insisted on it.
I feel no particular urge to name animals, especially when there aren’t enough around to cause any confusion
Maybe this just makes it easy for me to objectify them. So I don’t feel bad about calling my cat a slut every time she sleeps in the middle of the living room floor on her back with legs splayed. But she does have a name and I still don’t feel bad. I guess I’m just a bad person.
That’s true. Our smaller cat is Nikki. For some reason, we’ve both started referring to her as Pookie. After a short while, she started responding to either name. I think at this point anything that sounds like “xyz-KEE” would probably work.
And yes, Nikki/Pookie comes when called. Comes running, usually. It’s pretty easy to train a cat when they’re treat-oriented. Calling her name means we either have some kitty treats for her, or dropped some tasty human-food on the floor. Either way, she comes hustling!
I’ve gotten a surprising number of chuckles from this thread.
I have a dog named Alfie, but when he was a puppy I usually called him Muttley (as in Dick Dastardly’s sidekick) and over time I contracted it to Mutt (he’s a purebred miniature American Eskimo, so people looked at me funny when I yelled his “name”).
I had to leave him with my mother when I went to college, and now I don’t call him anything when I’m visiting (unless I’m referring to him in conversation). I just do the come-here whistle.
On the emotional attachment thing, one of my sisters would only name the farm animals that were not to be eaten.
The ones being fattened up were consequently given names such as, Christmas Dinner, casserole, or Easter.
One of my favorite lines about naming animals is in the movie Local Hero.
No spoilers. You’ll have to guess. No prizes. Just satisfaction.
My sister named her dog Pregúntale. We’d get dirty looks from relatives when they’d ask the dog’s name.
My friend named his dog Diogie (‘D’ ‘O’ ‘G’) but he answers to Dio.
In my town we have a bronze statue of a dog. It is named ‘Guess,’ of course.
I’ve named my chickens. I have Noodle, Nugget, Patty, General Tso, Raptor Red, Lacy and Dottie. They’re all layers, not broilers. I had two roosters named Peckerhead and Shutthefuckupyousonofabitch.
I thought all roosters were called this. Especially around dawn…
My in-laws in Mexico name some of their pets and not others. Dogs all get names. The ferret had a name. The ostriches didn’t have names, but then they weren’t really pets; they were just living there temporarily so their mother wouldn’t step on them. None of the little cage-birds had names. Ah, and my brother-in-law had a monkey before I got to know him, and it had a name.
No, no. Some of them are named Goddammit!Shutthefuckup! and some are named ShutthefuckupbeforeImakeyouintochickensalad!
I once had a kitten that I wanted to name “dog”. The ex wouldn’t go for that, so we compromised with “Cujo”.