What have you named your pets?

In My Humble Opinion
1

…and more importantly, why?

I mean all of them. Although I’m not sure I can remeber all of mine. I’ve had more cats than anyone (except the Crazy Cat Lady…which I’m not. Although it could be coming) should.

Ok, I’ll go first;

Ernest. My first cat. Because it’s important to be Ernest. I was a little kid but I knew who Oscar Wilde was.

Nietzsche. My parakeet. Well a kid who grows up reading Oscar Wilde turns into a very pretentious teenager.

But he was a very exisential budgie.

Canis. Latin for dog. Still pretentious, and yet lacking imagination.

Catherine Bastet. Because she was a regal, and possibbly godly animal.

Betenoir. Because she was a black beast. And yes I named myself after my cat.

Pricilla. A name I’ve always hated. But I looked at her and she was a Pricilla. She knew. Or at least that was as much as she was willing to tell me. Thank you T.S. Eliot.

X. Because she’s the unknow kitty.

Z. Because he came after X. And we skipped Y.

The Fold. aka Lucifer Sam because that cat’s something I can’t explain. Scottish fold. The Scots are odd folks.

Puppy. Still lacking in imagination but less pretentious.
I never got around to naming the fish.

2

Old pets: my aunt brought me to get a canary from a breeder in Barcelona when I was 10 or so. I remember going into this huge cage with tons of birds in it and being told to choose one from a separated area. This yellow one seemed friendly, so after looking at Mom to verify that it was OK I took it. Aunt asked what was I going to call it. I asked how do you say “yellow” in Catalan. So my canary was Groc, because he was yellow and Catalan.

Current pets: male white bear called Roncal (name of a valley in the Pyrinees); female white stripey cat called Neige (snow in French); gender-not-yet-determined white warpie called Scottie (what, it warps!). I kind of miss on being able to rub their bellies but they’re easier to move with than an actual cat…

3

Wait, there’s one more I have to mention, particularly because I’m the one who got him lost and I still feel guilty;

The Preacher kitty. Because he was black with a white bib. But for the record he was named after the comic book character.

4

Current cats are Ophelia, because she needed a name full of character and dignity, and Shadow because he’s black and he follows me round all the time (especially into the kitchen).

Previous cats have been Orly (Orlando, she was a girl but she got the name because she was a marmalade cat and reminded me of the book I had when I was a kid); Nuke because he was our new cat (geddit?); Claymore because he was a big bruiser; Bronte because she was fond of sleeping on books; Arthur because that’s what she was named when I got her; Zappa because because because.

5

My turtle was called Studebaker. Only true car geeks will know why.

He came when I called him. He taught me patience.

6

My male ringneck parrot is Isidore, after a weirdo Rumanian poet I happened to read about. His nicknames are Adolf, Osama, and Anti-Christ.

His mate is Azazel after a demon who lives in the desert. She’s living up to her name.

I have a pet cockatiel named Sadie Mae because she just looked like a Sadie and another named Bonko Ballistic because he looks rather wacky. Then there’s Music Man, who sings constantly, Mozart, who used to sing a lot, and Leona, so named because she’s mean.

A long time ago I had a rat with the brilliantly original name of Squeaky and a guinea pig named Princess. Princess did seem to live up to her name, being somewhat like Marie Antoinette.

When I was a kid I had a guinea pig named Bob because he had the colors of a Bobolink bird. This was in the 70’s when the Starsky and Hutch TV series was on; my father wanted to name the animal Starsky so we could put a sign on his cage saying “Starsky’s Hutch.”

A while later we aquired a stray cat that we named Blackberry but nicknamed Blacker. He bit people. I wanted to call him Psychopath but my mother insisted that was against the law.

There was also a gray squirrel living in the yard when I was a kid. He would come up to the front window when we watched MTV and bob around like he was dancing to the music. We called him Earl the Squirrel. Currently I sometimes name wild animals in the neighborhood–the Cooper’s Hawks, for instance, are Orion and Diana.

7

There’s an absolutely wonderful comic strip that hasn’t been published in ages but which is a total in-joke for Hispanics the world over: Mafalda, by Quino.

One of the characters is Mafalda’s land turtle, called, of course, Bureaucracy.

8

My first pet, a big black dog with white paws was named Boots. Because he had white paws and my sister got to name him.

I had an African Grey that I named Gandalf - after that wizard fellow.

I had a female eclectus that I named Pheonix for her fiery color.

9

We get our cats from animal shelters and the like. They often name them, and we’ve generally retained those names. Where they got they from, I don’t know.

Midnight – Our first cat, obtained as a 6 month old kitten from the Animal rescue League. She’s completely black, so it’s obvious where her name came from, right? But see below

Maggie – From the same place as Midnight, and the same age. The presence of two "M"s suggests to me that maybe they had a Baby Name book or something and were just going in alphabetical order. They may have skipped a couple to name Midnight because she was black, but they were already on the Ms.

Clarence – after Maggie’s death from cancer, we decided to get another cat. I saw Clarence at a show a Cat Rescue Shelter was giving, but didn’t get him then. We found him a couple of weeks later when we toured their facility. Clarence had been found in a 90 year old guys back yar in very bad shape. He’d been in a fight with something a lot bigger than him (Dog? Raccoon? opossum? Car? Coyote?) and it had literally crushed his skull. They patched him up, but you can see his head isn’t symmetrical, and he lost an eye. I suspect the Shelter people who named him had, like me, grown up in the 60s. Clarence the Cross-Eyed Lion was a character on the TV show Daktari, and it’s just a step from “Cross-Eyed” to “One-Eyed”.

Lotta – When we went to get a replacement for Maggie, our daughter, MilliCal, announcecd that “Lotta is waiting for us!” She didn’t have a cat in mind – but she knew that we were going to get a girl cat named “Lotta”. How she knew this, I don’t know. I saw Clarence and had to get him. But she needed a girl cat. We found a little black kitten that reminded us of Maggie, officially named Girl Teeny. we adopted her, but changed her name, the only time we’ve done so. MilliCal started calling one of her stuffed animals Girl Teeny instead. the live Girl Teeny had a mother in the shelter named Queenie, who we briefly considered adopting, but it was clear that she and Midnight would perpetually be fighting. Midnight took to Lotta immediately, probably because she did resemble Magie so much. Only this time, Midnight was the dominant cat.

Hestia – We got Hestia as a kitten from the family who owned her. She was thus pristine, and un-named. MilliCal chose the name “Hestia” from a book of mythology she likes (MilliCal definitely gets a lot from me) It’s the Greek goddess of the Hearth. The Roman counterpart is Vesta (hence, “Vestal Virgins”).

10

My cat’s name is Tio. At first, it was going to be Tia, for Tia Maria, because it was my favorite form of alcohol at the time (ah, those long lost drunken college days), and the kitten was exactly the color of Tia Maria Creme liqueur.

But then we found balls. Name change ensued.

11

I think the first pet that I named was Blackie (my sister probably had more to do with that than me). She was, uh, black.
The next cat we got was named by my mother; she called him Obediah. Thus started the saga. After Obediah died, we got a cute little cat and named her Thrasymachus. This was my sister’s and my fault. We were both taking ancient Greek; Thrasymachus was the title of one of my texts, and my sister was reading Plato.
The sequels so far have been Delilah the dog, Anastasia the cat (known as Staci), and most recently, Desdemona (or Mona). The last is pronounced with the accent on the second syllable, Italian style, after Verdi’s Otello.

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Pets my parents named before I was born:

  • Zoomer, the orange cat. His full name was Admiral Elmo Zumwalt III, after this guy.
  • Taffy, the little white toy breed mix. She died tragically when my 3-year-old self let her out to play with the sled dogs who were going down the road in front of our house.
  • Rags, the sheepdog.

Pets I had a hand in naming:

  • Roxanne, gerbil
  • Bandit, mutt
  • Snoopy, beagle
  • Missy, Blackberry, and M 'n M, all cats from my childhood
  • Manfred Jackson Jones, a.k.a. Fred, mixed yellow dog
  • Ramona, the 20-pound deaf white cat.
  • Stanley the raggedy cat who never adapted to living indoors
  • George, the ultimate shaggy dog

And current pets:

  • Violet the Mau mix (actually named by my son, after the teenage daughter in “The Incredibles”)
  • Dinah the Norwegian Forest Cat (mix?), named after Alice’s cat in Alice in Wonderland.
    and
  • Tooken (that’s an old picture. he’s much bigger now.), named in frustration after a day of listening to my kid shooting down all my suggestions with “That name’s already tooken.”
13

This is going to be long. I’ve had lots of pets in my life.

Katrina and Nathaniel - the hamsters. Katrina was after Katrina and the Waves. Nathaniel just because I liked it.

Dog - the cat. My sisters named that one.

Brandy - mutt dog. I liked the name at the time. shudder Can’t stand it now.

Molly - golden retriever. I liked the name.

Scottie - another golden retriever. Named after Scottie Pippin.

P.J. - black cat, named after my sister’s black friend. Hey, I was a kid, and it was suggested to me.

Bonnie - miniature rat terrier. I named her after Bonnie Blue Butler in “Gone With the Wind.”

Pants - the cat. We got him after Poopy (see below). Poopy pants, get it? He passed away very young and very unexpectedly.

Current pets:

Weezer - the dog. Named after the band. Gets called “Buddy” most of the time.

Poopy - big, orange cat #1. My husband named him. No idea why.

Buggy - big, orange cat #2. I named him this because he was cute as a bug’s ear as a kitten.

Mama - gray kitty #1. We named her Daphne when we brought her home from the humane society, but she had three kittens a month later and has been called Mama ever since.

Fuzzy Face - I’m guilty of this one. She has a face and it’s, um, fuzzy.

Bert & Ernie - the clownfish.

Huey, Dewey & Louie - the cardinalfish.

None of the other fish have names.

14

The current crop of cats are Vir (2-year-old meezer), Heidi (8-ish-year-old tortie Maine Coon), and Satin (17-year-old white shorthair). Until he died a few years ago, we had a black-and-white cat (reminiscent of a Japanese print) named Kami.

15

Neko got her name because she’s the very epitome of cathood; regal, condescending, demanding and takes finicky to levels it has never reached before. It just means “cat” in Japanese.

Shimi arrived at the same time as Neko and was white with a large black spot on his head (which has since vanished to be replaced by a black nose). Keeping with the Japanese angle it translates to “spot”.

That gave me cats named Cat and Spot although not so obvious to most people.

Some time later, just before we were planning to move, a long-haired fur ball wandered in one day and decided to stay. We’d seen her for a couple of weeks living outside, matted, filthy and trying to stay out of the rain so we knew she either didn’t have a home or wasn’t being taken care of at all. Since we were moving soon the question was “what do we do about fur ball number 3?” and that became her name although it’s usually just Furball for short.

Growing up I had dogs named Brandy (still like that name) and Noah although I didn’t name either one and don’t remember any significance to the names. We also had cats Sampson, his daughter Junior (don’t ask), Bonnie, and Claudette (they started as Barney and Clyde because we were told they were both male but soon realized they weren’t).

16

Both of our cats have literary names. Pixel is from Heinlein’s The Cat Who Walked Through Walls. Havoc, of course, starred in George R. R. Martin’s Tuf Voyaging. I was pet-less for a few decades prior to being adopted by these two.

17

My Italian Greyhound, Clifford, came with his name from the rescue foster home. I think they had an “animated pups” naming convention as others available for adoption at the time were Scooby and Snoopy. Also a little ironic since Clifford the Big Red Dog is the size of a building, but my Clifford is the size of a handbag.

Our black lab mix is Miles, after Miles Davis, 'cuz he’s jazzy and black.

Had a black cat that we eventually came to call Ms. P, Peeps, or PP, all abreviations for Puddy Tat.

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Umm… you have a pet… BEAR? :dubious:

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Puff - she was grey, looked like a puffball. Hey, I was six. I think she actually came with the name.

Fluffy (the dog - all the rest are cats) - again, I was six.

Kim-cat - Had a crush on a guy named Kim who would walk by my place sometimes on his way to school. This way I could call ‘hey, Kim-cat’ outside. Kids and crushes.

Tom & Tigger - offspring of Kim. Those were the days when my mom would accidentally let the cats out and they’d get run over. Hence my vow that no more cats of mine go outdoors. Tom was a tomcat and I liked Pooh’s Tigger.

Patches - a friend turned up at my place with an orphan cat who became mine (all the other cats were cats that were handed to us because they needed homes, too). I named him Patches but he was also known as Spatch and as Spatchy-my-beau

Sam - we were his third owners. He came to us with the name and he was black so he was called ‘Little Black Sambo’ - I didn’t know the story then and just liked the sound of it. He was called Sam or Sambo.

Mudge - my loonjob mother traded Sam to some kid for a little Maine coon kitten (don’t ask - mom had some issues). I was livid and wouldn’t talk to or deal with the kitten for a long time, I was so mad. Fortunately, Sam found his way back home (but was never the same since and had to be put down when he suffered a psychotic break when he got left alone at someone’s house by my mom). The kitten’s cuteness finally won me over. She was a ball of fluff and just seemed to suit Smudge, which was usually shortened to Mudge or Mudgey. Sweet cat. Died of breast cancer.

Matrushka - cat of spouse. Stray who turned up at his place in a rainstorm one night. He’d never had cats. Said ‘what will I do with her?’. He took her in ‘out of the rain for the night’. Of course she won him over. Turned out she arrived pregnant; I was studying Russian - Matrushka = 'Little Mother".

Neut - offspring of Matru. Named by spouse because he was neutered (spouse seemed to enjoy naming cats because of their reproductive states). Generally known as Neuty-poo.

Little Bit - Neut’s sister. Between the two of them, they made up one cat. Neut was very long and very tall, Bit wasn’t at all. She was sort of named after Queen Elizabeth (who is apparently known to her family as ‘Lillibet’). She died, far too young, of a congenital heart defect.

Grey Guy - not really ours but a yard cat who was an un-neutred male who would sometimes come to bug our indoor critters. Eventually he stopped looking well-cared for and we wondered whether his family had abandoned him. One day he was looking dreadful; thin and weak. I took him to the vet, who took blood and found that he had both feline leukemia and feline HIV. She said his blood ‘looked like water’. Poor old guy. I paid to have him put down and felt sorry that his family had let him get to that state.

Little Momma - feral cat we were unable to trap before she produced two litters. Litter number one grew up in our yards; of the first litter, Little Brother came to an early end, we fear.
-Treasure became the beloved pet of my neighbour after having lived in our yards for a few years and then being injured (kicked in the stomach by a man, we think, because her intestines were shoved up into her diaphragm and she never trusted men afterward), rescued, repaired at the vet’s.

  • Pansy - my spouse thought he was female. When we realized he was male, we renamed him Sancho Pansy and Pan Zee Doodle. He was a feral cat who let us take him to the vet and get him fixed. We cared for him for a few years and then had to move so sent him to live with Treasure’s mom. He escaped one day into her yard and was never seen again :frowning:

Little Momma’s second litter was born in a garage and the owners of the garage saw that the kittens were adopted. I was miffed - there was a white one with a black tail-tip that was killer cute that I wanted. Little Momma herself disappeared after looking ill for a while. She was the most elusive of feral cats - I think I managed to pet her ear briefly once.

Miss Fuzzy Face - was eating the yard cat’s food and got shooed away until it became clear that she was desperate and starving. She was also full of kittens-to-be. We took her in and cared for her and she produced a litter in my neighbour’s kitchen. She had been so malnourished that all her fur had grown out and only her undercoat remained. We found homes for half her litter of six; my best pal took one of them (Ginger) and spouse and I took the other two - Molly and Gus. Gus was probably the son of Grey Guy since he was the same Russian Blue colour. Molly was sort of after my grandmother but mostly just a nice name. I got Mol and Gus in the divorce and they lived with me until two summers ago - Gus’ diabetes got him and Mol died of an enlarged spleen and a bladder infection. Ginger still thrives back home with my best pal.

I’ll get more cats again. The friend who had Treasure works with cat rescue people so there’s a source of cats for me.

Sorry, no photos. I haven’t yet got myself one of the online accounts. It’s on my ‘to do’ list.

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Germ Shep–Gonzo
Beagles—Snoopette
Quincy
Nordberg
Cats- Fourteen
Triskadeckaphobia (triska)
Boris
Spaulding
turtle-Sherman