When I first started Kindergarten, we had a long-haired female cat named Fluffer.
‘Jess’ for border-collies. If two border-collies ever meet, there will be confusion because you can bet both of them are called Jess.
Ours is a Jess, but only because it came with the name.
Not quite so bad, but my family got a cat when I was 2. It was solid black and we got it in October, so I named it Halloween. I then promptly shortened the name to Weenie.
My parents could never decide which was less likely to make the neighbours think they were crazy - standing on the front step yelling “Halloween” or standing there yelling “Weenie”.
Can’t help you. My cat’s got a great name. Porkchop! 
When I was a kid, my cat was named “Princess” about as ordinary as you can get.
My favorite cat name of all time was “Scrounge Rat”
My Dad in his young and rebellious days named his mother’s new kitten Fritz. I suppose this must have happened in the mid 60s since I met the cat in the mid 80s and he was about or nearly 20 then.
My poor Grandmother never knew. And when I found out it was implied that it was best if she never knew.
Barkley, the Caitlyn of the canine world.
I had a black cat that I got on Halloween when I was a little girl. I named him Spook. No one thought anything about it then…
My father-in-law lived in the Louisiana bayou. His neighbor was a Cajun, and had a dog named Phideaux.
Back in the seventies, we had a dog named Knob.
Around the same time, we had a cat named Pussy.
We kids named these pets in all innocence, of course. There were lots of cats named Pussy in those days, it wasn’t a particularly unusual (or imaginative) name for a cat. The dog was named for his tail, which was a botched docking, leaving him with a tiny knob for a tail. We also called him Knobby or Knobs. If my parents knew the slang meanings of these words, they never mentioned it and it was never brought up by anyone else that I can recall.
Sometimes though, if I mention these pets to people, they look at me like we were perverts or something. Once I explain as above, they understand but it’s still sort of embarassing, as if we should have known better or something.
I don’t think this was ever cute but to my mother’s eternal embarrassment, she had a little black dog during her 1930s Irish childhood called “Nigger”.
One of my Porties, Guinness, was named Milky Way by his original owners. As soon as I got him home, that changed right away. No way was I going to be calling “Milky Way!” at a dog park.
We rescued our dog from a no-kill shelter. Her name was Bernadette. We immediately dubbed her Bernie. Why would one name a dog Bernadette?? Weird.
Thats not as bad as what I named my fish when I was VERY young. I named my goldfish “Swimafair”. The logic of this name was that my fish swam, and I won it at a fair. So of COURSE its name should be “Swimafair”
Our friends’ son named their cat Fabulous. Fabulous the cat. I think they usually referred to him as “Fab.”
The same kid later wanted to name a greyhound “Skinny,” but that was roundly vetoed.
That reminds me of the name I gave my first monarch caterpillar. My parents had warned me that it might die, so I shouldn’t be too disappointed if that happened. It survived and became “Butterfly Diddadie”. Because it, uh, didn’t die.
“Nig” used to be a rather common name for black dogs, I run into it a lot in old books and biographies . . . Vernon and Irene Castle (who had a lot of black friends and coworkers) had a monkey named “Rastus” in the 1910s (“Rastus” was a typical minstrel-character name).
Oddly, my parents had a cat named “Yuppie” in the 1940s.
When I was young and my Mom was getting into many things church related…we had a parakeet named Soloman…and our cat’s name was Moses…well one day while we were in town shopping, Soloman got out of his birdcage…and Moses proceded to catch him…so Moses ate Soloman, I was heart broken for months…most people did think we were a little weird…but that only led to things like letting my 17 year old son name the kittens we rescued from a barn…he being the Rob Zombie fan he is proceeded to name them Tempesta and Riggs for the band members…Riggs name has been turned into Miss Riggs right she took a whiz on the cd case for said mentioned album…I thought it was great however he was not amused at all…
Well, my black cat’s name is Cosmic Creepers. I think it’s hilarious, but everyone looks at me strange when I say it. Some bold people have come right out and told me it’s stupid.
The only person who likes it is my friend Sarah. We always said that if we had a black cat, we’d name it Cosmic Creepers. So, when I got one, I did.
Do you all think it sounds stupid? I thought it was cool, but maybe it was just a brain fart.
My flatmates got a dog and called it Strumpet. When one of the (old generation, prissy) mothers-in-law met it for the first time and asked its name they re-christened it on the spot to Beverley (as in Crusher).
Yeesh.