Stupid double post
FYI, it’s “Mystery.” Which would suck if the cat was red or white, but excellent for a darker catty.
As for my own naming strategy, it has multiple steps.
First you gotta find out what your cat is like, in personality. Is he/she feisty, playful, sweet, lazy?
Next, look at his/her looks. Edgy or smooth features of the snoot? Big round innocent eyes or piraty slits? What is the coloration?
Then, you gotta decide which sounds seem more consistent with what you’ve observed in his/her personality and looks.
And only then, you comprise a name out of those sounds.
I always have to get to know them a little bit first before picking a name. Our first cat was an orange-ish tiger-striped mutt named Butterscotch, but that naming was performed by committee with my sister.
My first single-parented cat was named Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin; he was very regal, a longhaired mostly black cat with a white bib, paws, and whiskers. He always looked like he was wearing a tux. And he was very temperamental; he only liked me, and on rare occasions, my boyfriend at the time (and oddly enough, my landlord at the time). He hissed at almost everyone else.
Then, when Pushkin was 2 or so, we discovered that he was actually a she. Luckily, in Russian “Sasha” is the nickname either for Alexander or Alexandra, so kitty was Sasha after that. Never name a cat after a Russian poet, though; they all die young. My beloved Sashenka died of unknown natural causes at the very premature age of 3.
I was about to leave for grad school then, and vowed not to get another cat, because it would only make my life less mobile and more complicated. It didn’t work very well, though; once a cat person, always a cat person. A few weeks later, desconsolate and bawling to every shelter staff person who would listen about Sasha’s untimely end, I brought home a little 8-week-old fluffball who purred like a steam engine. He was gray tiger striped with a white belly and beautiful green eyes.
You know how kitttens run so hilariously when they are little, because their back legs move faster than their front legs, so that they practically end up running sideways? Well, to me he looked like he was jousting, and being of a somewhat literary bent, I dubbed him Sir Galahad. He didn’t stay tiny for long; he was normal sized until I left him with my roommate over the summer while I was out of the country. When I came back, he was a fat cow; he now weighs in the neighborhood of 16 lbs, and his belly swings from side to side when he trots. Eight years later, I mostly call him Fatso. But he still purrs like a locomotive.
I’ve got a great book called “The Best-Ever Book of Dog & Cat Names.” It’s got all kinds of names, their meanings and derivations. It’s a fun read, even if you don’t use any of the names. I’m not sure if it’s still in print.
Well, as stated, books are good sources. I named my parents’s white-mitted orange tabby Socks after the Beverly Cleary book about a cat with the same name, which I really liked when I was a kid. We call her by the nickname “Ticky”, which is what the baby in the book called the cat.
Sometimes, I’m just goofy about it. My sisters and I very cleverly named the other white-mitted orange tabby “Mittens.” Mom said we had to ask Dad if we could get a second cat, and so we rather deviously went to him and asked, “Can we get Mittens to match our Socks?” Clueless, he answered, “I don’t care what you wear.” (True story.)
I just got an all black kitten and I named her Cosmic Creepers, just because it sounds so dopey.
I think I like the Greek and Roman classics best of all, though. My best friend named her girl cat Artemis (Greek goddess of the hunt) because she likes to stalk things.
And I named my boy kitten Oedipus Rex because he’s extremely affectionate to his mother (me). 
Spell it “Oedipuss”, though.
I named my mom’s cat after a cat we used to have–Alex. I wanted to name her Ham 'n Cheese.
You could wait until s/he tears something up, then name him/her whatever comes to mind. My Siamese Reno is known as You Damned Little Bastard, Little Dickhead (or LD for short), and Rocker (don’t know where that one came from).
Just get the cat, hang around with him/her a while and he/she will “tell” you his/her name.
That’s how Shan got his name.
I always liked mythological names myself. Loki was probably my favorite name for a cat.
I had a cat named Scrounge Rat. It fit her perfectly.
My wife and step-son have no sense of style so our pet names are now more pedestrian. I wanted to name our cat Rouge but they couldn’t pronounce it so it became Brat.
I would post more, but I’m not sure it’s public domain.
I had a cat with three names: Rosebud Fluffhead Fuzzybutt. We called her Rosie.
That is exactly what I do. Sometimes they tell me on the way home and sometimes they wait a day or two. It takes an intuitive person to catch it though. That’s how I got Mistletoe, ZeeZee, Pasha, Sasha, Clouseau, Bogey, Moomaw, Doo Da, Sundance, Rosie and Pumpkin.
I go by the way they act.My latest one(i have three)is named Bob,full name is Bob lord emperor of the clowns.I go by the way they act and he was just a silly little kitten.
from the Garfield Book of Cat Names…
“what Mittens ever got named President of the Rotary Club?”
“Wouldn’t you feel ridiculous yelling Snowball at the top of your lungs?”
I’d like to take off on this if I may, and relate how my current cat got his name.
I’d had him for about a week, and had a friend over who was tormenting the cat mercilessly with the little wand-string-feather toy. The friend and I had been discussing names (all his suggestions were demon lords from the D&D Book of Vile Darkness). After the cat made an impressive backflip while going after the feathers, I made the comment “Nimble little minx, isn’t he?” *
Well, combined with the previous mentions of Baal, Azeroth, and Azrael (vehemently rejected because of the Smurfs reference), this clicked into dubbing the cat Gozer.
“I tried to think of the most harmless thing. Something that could never destroy us. A cute itty-bitty wittle kittie!”
He’s usually just Gozer, although he occasionally takes the forms of Gozer the Traveler (tearing laps around the apartment full speed) or Gozer the Destructor.
- Note I have been diagnosed with Quotitis, where 5-10% of any conversation you have with me is likely to be made up of movie quotes. This percentage is cumulative with each other Quotitis sufferer in the room. Please donate so we can stamp out this terrible infliction. Thank you.
<sigh> Don’t ask me, I don’t know what an infliction is either. Make that “affliction”.
Mine are named after characteristics they exhibit. My male cat is named Kermit. When he was a baby, he didn’t run - he hopped like a frog. He still does it sometimes. My female cat is named Cricket. When I first got her, she had a really bad cold, so whenever she exhaled or inhaled, she literally sounded like a cricket. She’s part siamese, or that’s what the pound told me. Anyway, she’s got blue eyes, and I think that certain breeds sound different from others when they vocalize. When she purrs, she sounds kind of like a cricket still. She occaisionally chirrups, too.
Exactly.
Our first cat came with a name. We adopted him from the animal control center and they told us that his name was Charles. This is also Mr. Amanita’s brother’s name, and his brother used to work at the animal control center. We figured this was a Sign. Our cat is always known as Charles - never Charley. He is far too dignified for the diminutive. In fact, he’s often known as Mr. Charles T. Cat.
We adopted our second kitty from a rescue society. Her fosters had given her the name Marcie, but we had an acquaintance at the time with that name whom I really didn’t like. Aliens was playing on TNT a lot at that time, so she got named Newt. She is not named after Newt Gingrich! She is also known as Newtle (Noodle).
Our third kitty adopted me. I was playing with him behind our house and our neighbor came out and said that the cat belonged to his upstairs neighbor, was named Pierre, and that she was looking to get rid of him. (I was indignant that she had put an intact male cat out in our neighborhood which already had a significant feral problem.) Pierre was quite randy until we got him fixed, so the French name, said with the appropriate cheesy Pepe LePew accent, seemed to suit him.
Try http://www.greatcatnames.com/ for ideas. But I agree - you’ve got to wait and see what the cat’s personality is.
I’m sure it’s been said, but I think a lot of naming comes from personality. We have a cat who reminded us of Figaro from “Pinocchio” so we named him as such, but we noticed that he had this very high pitched squeaky meow and changed his name to Beeker like the muppet.
Another cat we named Buster because he’s full of attitude. Tiger was named so b/c well he looked like a Tiger and I was 5 years old so I wasn’t too creative.
Our youngest cat is named Pepper, but I usually call him Fat Fat Fat or Meatloaf becuase he’s huge but still a runt.
It was all I could do to keep my parents from naming the dog Diva. Thank g-d I won that battle, even tho she ended up being named Banjo somehow.
I also think that names from literature are great pet names.
I have a Rumpleteazer (from T.S. Elliot’s "Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats/ ALW’s “CATS” musical) and a Buttercup (named after Princess Buttercup in the book Princess Bride by S. Morgenstern).
IDBB