Name your pet and give me the story! Or not.

In My Humble Opinion
41

Kita and Ursula - Kita, the retriever, was named that when I got her at 11 weeks old. She used to go apeshit whenever she saw her sister, Pumpkin, on walks. Two wiggling puppies so overjoyed to see each other - too cute!

Ursula wandered into my yard one Halloween and was named that because she had her winter coat (this was in Idaho) and looked like a little she-bear. Kita was about a year and a half at that time and Ursula instantly bonded with her, acting very much a mother figure. Very protective. She was the one I mentioned in a previous thread whose former owner (whom I had met) is now serving a life sentence after murdering a woman. She had run away while he was doing time in jail for a different crime. She was a wonderful dog from a terrible man.

Kulta - Kulta is a term of endearment in Finnish, meaning “sweetheart” or “golden.” About 6 months after Kita and Ursula died (a month apart from each other), Kulta was found by my employer. Actually, she found him. He was sitting at his kitchen table drinking coffee when he got the feeling someone was looking at him. Glancing over at the door, he saw her staring at him from outside. Since he already had a dog and knew I was looking for one, she became mine. The vet thought she might have been as old as 14 years at that time (her trachea was hardening) and she lived with me for another year and a half. She was the gentlest of souls and I suspect she was awesome in her prime.

This is kiffa’s little weiner dog, Sugar

42

You’re kidding. My cats are named W and X.
Because when we got W, we couldn’t come up with a good name. So for a while we were calling her “Whatsername”. Then my mother calls up and, not having any other way to refer to her, askes “have you named little W yet.”
Which is not to say we named our cat W short for Whatsername. (no cat would put up with that). I just liked the way it sounded and even as a kitten she had a certain mysterious elegence about her, so actually it’s short for The Marquiss of W_, like how they refered to nobility in 19th novels.

And X came after W. Which turned out to be appropriate anyway since she’s a very strange cat, and we usually refer to her as The X Cat, as in the unknown kitty.

One more: So one day W gave birth. We had no idea. Which isn’t as absurd as it sounds 'cause she only had one kitten. Plus she was gong around in those big bulky sweaters. Well not really, but- big cat, one kitten you couldn’t tell. We found out we we heard a noise and I pulled a handful of grey fluff from under my bureau. So we named him Dust Bunny. (although I guess Y? would have been appropriate too.)

43

My husband and I had no name for our little poodle puppy for about two weeks. He looks like a little old man because of his white eyebrows and beard, but no ‘old man’ names seemed to fit the little squirmy-wormy pup. He was bouncing around one day, and I said “How about Pogo?”, and the name stuck. On his AKC papers he is listed as Edgar Allen Pogo, because we thought it was funny.
My step-dogs (the ones Mr Twy had before we met) are Herbie and Francesca.
Herbie was named Herbie by the girl at the pound. He’s a beagle mix, and kinda looks like a Herbie, so it’s ok.
Francesca’s full AKC name is Contessa Francesca Hoof-N-Paw, after Dot from the Animaniacs somehow. I’m not really sure how he got Francesca from Dot, but he did. She’s a big, ugly Bull Mastiff, BTW.
My dog Max started out as Jack (after the character Jack Sawyer from The Talisman), but my roomie at the time insisted on calling him Matthew. I thought Matthew was a stupid name for a dog, so we came up with ** Maximus Painintheassicus**, and shortened it to Max. Little Max stayed with roomie when I got married and moved away, but she wasn’t taking care of him and I took him back and now he lives with my mom and her Maltese Skippy. My mom is not good at naming animals. We had a beagle named Snoopy (how original!) and a guinea pig named Piggy. When she got Skippy, she wanted to name him Pocket Rocket, and she was quite surprised to learn that ‘Pocket Rocket’ did not mean ‘something fast and cute that was small enough to fit in your pocket’, but something else that she probably didn’t want to be calling for out in the yard. (“Is it something dirty?” she asked.) lol :slight_smile:
Rose

44

The dog that I have now is named Rufus. He is named after the George Carlin charatcer in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventures.

I had a dog named Artoo…after the droid.

I have a cat who’s name can’t be written properly. The closest spelling we can come up with is Eh-eh but it doesn’t really convey the way it should be said.

45

My recently departed Sam was named after a dog. My best friend’s dog had just died, I found out via a letter, and I had just picked Sam up at the pet store in Louisiana where I lived for a while (long story there).

Sam the dog was a fat beagle mix that was like my own dog while growing up. My mom didn’t like dogs so Sam was closest I could have to a dog.

Well my cat Sam lived up to a lot of his namesake’s traits. He would beg, fetch a ball and was a larger than normal cat even though he wasn’t fat. (Sam the dog was one fat beagle mix.)

Niki my female cat. No real story there, initially she was known as Cleo because of the dark fur around her eyes but for some reason I changed her name.

Then there’s Kodiak aka Kodi. He’s a chow/shep/lab mix and was a big furball and really did look like a fuzzy bear when he was a pup. I didn’t want to name him Bear like so many other people do and while looking through a map of Alaska one night, Kodiak Island popped out at me. It was just the right name for him.

Now, if I get another kitty to fill the void that Sam left I will have to think long and hard as to what to name it. I think people names are better for cats though.

46

Dogs:

Grizzly is so named because he has the colorations of a grizzly bear. He’s Akita/G. Shepherd, and 90 pounds.

Duke is a Yellow Lab/G. Shepherd mix, about 85 pounds. I don’t know why I named him Duke, it just seemed to fit.

Cats:

Rocky flies through the air like a squirrel, and also stands up on his back legs and boxes the other cat. He’s a grey tabby.

Chili. Good old Chili, another grey tabby. He farts a lot. Also, while trying to name him in October of 1998, I was watching my beloved Yankees defeat the Indians, and Chili Davis had just hit a double. The cat was watching the game, and it all just fit.

47

I’ve got two cats: Hobbes and George.

George, a black-and-grey tabby, is named for George of the Jungle. He’s always been, well, clumsy. Really, really clumsy. One time, when he was a kitten, he was running like mad all over the apartment. I was standing sideways in an archway, presenting the smallest target area to anyone going through. Of course, he comes running around the corner and slams smack into my legs at full force. He pauses, shakes his head, and keeps on going. Instantly, we knew his name.

Hobbes was named for the Bill Waterson character of the same name. He is continuously happy and cheerful. When we got him, as a kitten, George was about a year old, and would growl and swat at Hobbes, but Hobbes would purr and continue to rub up against George. Within two days, we caught Hobbes sleeping on top of George. This cat purrs while getting shots in the vet’s office. As an orange tabby, there was no other choice but to name him Hobbes.

48

The only mammal I’ve got in the apartment here (well, aside from my roommates of course) is my hamster Bleu Finnegan. I named her after a character in a comic book I happened to be reading that weekend. I almost always owned some pet, but hamsters are my favorites. After all one of them won me 200 dollars on a bet once (LONG story there).
Bleu I rescued while I was on vacation in Florida. One of my friends told me about a person who was trying to get rid of a hamster that turned out to be pregnant. I was expecting to get one of the babies but I ended up with the mommy hamster. She’s pretty active and destructive, but somehow I managed to hide her in my dorm room until I moved out this summer.

49

I have two cats. I used to have four, but didn’t name any of them.

Pippin I’ve had for years. He was handed down to me through a few owners (if that term can be applied to a cat’s human), but I’ve known him ever since he was a tiny little ball of hyperactive fluff. My best friend, who is known to all here as Andros was dating a lovely woman who had Pippin. He moved in with another friend, Q9. When his g/f moved in with them, she brought Pip with her. (and Q9 and I spent an afternoon making a castle out of her moving boxes. Pippin loved it) Well, Andros and his g/f got married, and moved out west, fully intending to come back around Xmas and get Pippin. By that time, I had moved in with Q9, and when they got to town, they had already gotten a dog and (I think) two cats, so they passed Pippin on to Q9. When Q9 moved out, he left Pippin behind.

But his name: he was small, and kept tripping over his furry little feet. So Mrs. Andros named him after the hobbit friend of Frodo.

The other 3 cats I had were because my g/f wanted two kittens (how we ended up with three is a hijack for another time). They all came from the same litter, and since their birthday was March 3rd, they were Pisces; she wanted to name the boy Poseidon (after the god who rules the sign). Sticking with the Greek theme, one of his sisters was named Calliope, and the other was named after an opera by Delibes: Coppelia.

For the record, I had to get rid of Poseidon and Calliope, but they now own my parents, who love them dearly.
Next cat I get, I’m naming the damn thing myself!

50

Correction: Coppelia is a ballet, not an opera. Delibes also wrote a ballet that had a theme in it which got nicked by Knight Rider. I guess they didn’t think anyone would notice.

51

I originally named my cat Neutrino because, when I found her, she was just a little ball of fluff, she was virtually massless, and she moved (it seemed) at light speed. Then, as she got older, she grew bigger and lost her charge, so I changed her name to Neutron.

52

CnoteChris:

And why is that?

53

Baker:

I guess it didn’t take you long to consider and reject naming the cat Cape Fear. Slightly more appropriate than Mad Max, but still entirely wrong for a cuddly kitten.

54

i had a kitten named ‘blacky white’ i few years back, thus named because he was black and white.

then this incident went down:
my neighbor at the time accused blacky of mauling her beagle. after examining the wounds to the dog, i acknowledged (to myself) that, while some of the wounds were consistent with kitten scratches, there were other, more serious wounds that had to have come from another larger animal. i believe my cat, who was witnessed leaving the scene of the crime, was set up to take the fall while someone else’s pet did most of the damage - a second shooter if you will. there was no way my small, unassuming kitten could have mauled the dog this badly in the short time the scuffle supposedly happened.

his name has been ‘oswald’ ever since.

55

Two dogs - Anisette and Sambuca

Sambucca (Sammy) is half chow and half lab and jet black, she was just this little tiny furball when we got her but we wanted sonmeting other than “blackie or bear.” well at the time we got her Opal Nera (black sambuca) was a real craze in our town, and since we had her in the bar trying to figure out a new name, this stuck!!!

At the time I had never tasted sambuca, let alone the black stuff - and after we named her I tried it, haven’t touched the stuff since.

Anisette is half Lab and half Chesapeake Bay retriever and as black as the ace of spades as well - she’s dumber than a box of rocks and she got this name because that is how most people I know get after having a couple of shots of the stuff!!!

When we first got Sambuca we had only lived on the street for 5 months and I learned very quickly not to yell “Hey Black Sam” or “get in here you stupid black bitch” when I wanted her to come in from the yard. - My neighbors did not appreciate either.

56

Angus is our lovable Newfoundland. His “real” AKC name is Bacchanal’s Cabernet, but since we don’t drink, and since it’s kind of wierd… Angus! Angus was a kennel dog who became a house dog, and there is nothing better in the world than being a family’s house dog! Our breeder told him so when he left her kennels.

We had a hard time naming him. When he arrived at age 4 months, he was a fat adorable ball of fluffy hair, and it was hard not to name him something cute. We had to remember that this dog would someday weigh upwards of 160 lbs, and Fluffy might not fit. We also voted against “Noah” because somehow we knew that this dog would be hearing “No!” a lot, and it might confuse him.

He is a lover, a lap dog, and every kid’s best friend, especially if they have food! He is being boarded at the moment because I am leaving for a business trip tomorrow, and I cried when I dropped him off :frowning: .

57

** C note ** Didn’t I mention that my ex (ahem EX) husband named the cats??? Yes, I thought it was lame. Mouse, on the other hand, thought it was a royal title (or at least that’s how she acted). Naturally, if there were any of those itty bitty 4 legged long tailed creatures that one sets traps for running around, we referred to ** them ** as * rodents * to make it clear.

It was reason #2,109,930,090,003,764,875,343 we’re divorced. Excellent reasons, one and all.

58

I still can’t believe a thread I started at the crack of dawn just to kill some time has received such feedback.

What’s wrong with you people!?!

I’ve started some deep threads that went know where fast. Where were you all then? Threads that took some time and effort to formulate and construct. Such classics like, ‘My cat just farted, and I heard it!’, ‘Stainless Steel? Stainless Formica?’ and my all-time favorite, ‘In a pinch (Snort!), what have you used for toilet paper?’. Now those were threads I’ve actually stayed around to watch only to see them drop like the proverbial brick.

But who can tell these things…

Anhooo,

betenoir- We are but a few in small but proud minority. Hats off to taking the road less traveled.

Renton Your dogs named reminded me of a great golden retriever I once had as a kid, ‘Ruffian of the hills’, or Ruff, for short. I think a comic strip character’s dog is named Ruff too, but I can’t remember the strip.

Dire Wolf “…Chili. Good old Chili, another grey tabby. He farts a lot. Also, while trying to name him in October of 1998, I was watching my beloved Yankees defeat the Indians, and Chili Davis had just hit a double. The cat was watching the game, and it all just fit.”

Why do I have a feeling you’re a guy? Well, mostly because the woman so far have been waxing nostalgic about their pet’s and their names… Putting things in such a romantic perspective. Then you come along.

Five Keep on smoking the hooch. Notice what you say when passing the ‘flame’ on to another- ‘Eaar’. Say it like you’re in pain, and say it fast, you get what I meant.

wring Remind me to e-mail you before I get married. You’ll keep me honest. Hope you’ve found someone or something that makes you happier than that marriage sounded like.
Thanks to those who have responded. Amazingly, I’ve found myself oddly interested in hearing other peoples stories on how and why they named their pet what they did

59

My stray kitty was an orange tabby with patches of white on his chest, paws, and tummy. I called him Tabby (yes, it’s very original), Tab for short. His mother, who shared his territory, was called Mommycat. Given the way she looked, though, Mud Puddle would have been more appropriate.

60

Audicans- I wondered why you hadn’t piped up in this thread yet. Glad you came.

Now then, there’s been some different names popping up around here- some original, some not. There’s an ‘X’ and a ‘W’ to my ‘Z’. There are some sad stories and some uplifting stories. There are more names and reasons why they’re named what they are than I ever could have imagined. There’s even a woman who was so put off by what her husband named their cat that she added it to her list of reasons to divorce the sorry sap.

All told, some interesting stories.

But I’m left somewhat disappointed by your choice of names. You’re much too complex to have been content with Tabby and Mommycat. Right? Tell me there’s a Satan or an Adolph tarantula somewhere in your past.

Not that I think you have this evil streak in you, on the contrary, only that you have an edge about you that normally comes out in the names that people give pets. Tabby and Mommycat just seem too… well… I don’t know.

There must be a ‘killer’ or ‘brutus’ out there.