# Naming my dog Muhammad the Prophet **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 22, 2008, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/naming-my-dog-muhammad-the-prophet/474036 "2008-11-22T21:45:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4da419/32.png) [@Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gala_Matrix_Fire)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2008, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/naming-my-dog-muhammad-the-prophet/474036/21 "2008-11-23T14:40:17Z")
You already said that you aren’t planning on doing it, so I assume you’re just asking for the hell of it. Assuming you aren’t a famous person and there’s no reason anybody outside your household would know your dog’s name, it’s extremely unlikely that your dog’s name would incite worldwide Muslim outrage. However, you might feel awfully bad when you took him to the veterinarian and found out your veterinarian was a Muslim. If you were a scholar of the life of Muhammad and you thought that your dog’s personality was just like Muhammad’s, assuming you could imagine what Muhammad would have been like if he’d been a young puppy, I could see being motivated to name your dog Muhammad. But if you were that scholar, you would also know that it would offend a lot of people who you probably didn’t want to offend. Dogs seem to respond best to one- or two-syllable names, so you’d already be starting off on the wrong foot with your dog to call him Muhammad, let alone Muhammad the Prophet. If he ran away and you cruised the neighborhood calling out “Muhammad the Prophet, Muhammad the Prophet,” you’d probably only confuse your neighbors who would assume you were doing a particularly poor job of proselytizing. How offensive would Muslims find it? Depends on the Muslims. I imagine 100% of them would at least consider it to be in poor taste and deliberately done to be obnoxious. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2008, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/naming-my-dog-muhammad-the-prophet/474036/22 "2008-11-23T15:34:25Z")
It does sound potentially troublesome. Perhaps the only way you could make it worse would be posting your intentions on the Internet. ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2008, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/naming-my-dog-muhammad-the-prophet/474036/23 "2008-11-23T19:46:47Z")
There is a real world precedent. Last year Lars Vilks, a Swedith cartoonist, [depicted the Prophet Muhammad as a dog](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_Vilks_Muhammad_drawings_controversy) as his submission for an exhibition on “The Dog In Art”, igniting the expected storm of protests and resulting in a dead-not-alive bounty of $100,000 (“raised to $150,000 if he is slaughtered like a lamb”) being put on his life by the leading Iraqi “insurgent” group of militants. In response to the threats on his life, Lars has gotten himself a real-life guard dog. Which he named Muhammad. This dog is female. So effectively, he’s [made the Prophet his bitch](http://greenspiece.blogspot.com/2007/10/muhammads-his-bitch.html). ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2008, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/naming-my-dog-muhammad-the-prophet/474036/24 "2008-11-23T20:06:35Z")
> [@Paul in Saudi](#): > > I recall a wonderful court decision I read someplace about a guy who (after Black family moved in next door) named his new dog Nigger. The family complained because the guy would stand on his porch and yell “Nigger! Nigger!” Guy Gibson’s dog was called “Nigger”, I’m wondering how Stephen Fry will handle this in the remake of The Dambusters that he’s writing and Peter Jackson is directing. In the original film the dog’s name is mentioned a fair bit (sometimes censored in TV broadcasts). ---
**Author:** ![sjc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e5b9ba/32.png) [@sjc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sjc)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2008, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/naming-my-dog-muhammad-the-prophet/474036/25 "2008-11-23T21:20:18Z")
First of all, I believe the dog is an unclean animal in many (if not all) Muslim cultures (though I may be mistaken about this). So right there I think that’s potential for offense. Second of all, why would you want to do this (yes I know you said you weren’t planning to)? It’s an odd name for a dog in our country and given the charged relationship between the two cultures invites speculation as to motive. I’d WAG that at least some Muslims would be seriously pissed off if they learned of it, at least partly due to the current climate of distrust and dislike that permeates both sides. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/naming-my-dog-muhammad-the-prophet/474036/26 "2008-11-24T00:10:02Z")
There’s a GQ answer to this. It’s very offensive. Quite recently a British teacher was imprisoned in Sudan, a Muslim country, for letting her class name a teddy bear Muhammed. [Cite](http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article2951262.ece). [Hijack] > [@Szlater](#): > > Guy Gibson’s dog was called “Nigger”, ‘Nigger’ or ‘Niger’ (hard ‘g’)? The latter being Latin for ‘black’: IIRC the dog was, in fact, black. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/naming-my-dog-muhammad-the-prophet/474036/27 "2008-11-24T00:18:14Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > ‘Nigger’ or ‘Niger’ (hard ‘g’)? The latter being Latin for ‘black’: IIRC the dog was, in fact, black. Yes, but isn’t that more or less the same etymology for the term when applied to humans? Also, is it likely that the dog’s name was chosen directly because of the latin word for black, without any reference to the term as regards black _people_? Doesn’t seem likely. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/naming-my-dog-muhammad-the-prophet/474036.md?page=1)