So I have pets. I have kids, therefore I have pets.
My cats have names. Good for them. But it got me thinking this morning. As I understand the history, humans ended up working with cats out of mutual self-interest. They killed rodents - and other pests - and we got to keep our crops from being gnawed and ruined. Works for both sides and was very businesslike.
But at some point the businesslike relationship became closer. Cats just wandering around human settlements must have moved in and made themselves at home as little buzzing, fish-stealing bastards they are.
Presumably at that point - or earlier - humans began naming them something other than ‘Hey cat, kill more rats!’ But when is my question. When did we start naming cats? And what’s the earliest cat on record with a name that was recorded?
I know we’ve done this for humans. But cats are more important. Just ask them.
Way beck when, adults may have seen cats as just tools, but their kids would have seen them as “friends”. And I can’t imagine kids NOT giving their friends names.
Also, the Egyptians worshiped cats. I’d also imagine they gave their furry overlords names too.
My SiL still hasn’t started! Even though she knew my cat, Homer, for years, she always addressed him as “cat”. It’s strange as hell, but I think it reflects what JC said. When you view an animal as a friend/companion, you give it a name. To my SiL, they’re just cats and dogs.
Agriculture meant grain storage which meant rodents which made cats extremely useful to human survival. So, it should be within the last 10 000 years when agriculture developed, likely pretty early after that. People like to name stuff they keep seeing.
For dogs, it would have been useful for them to have names they could recognize so they would know the following command was directed at them. They must have had names at least from the moment we used for them hunting (c.13 000 years ago) or herding (may be earlier than that).
Possibly in the neighborhood of 100,000 years ago. Perhaps the early names had no significance, even today there are numerous cats and dogs named ‘Cat’ or ‘Dog’, but if a Hunter/Gatherer group had multiple dogs around they’d probably give them unique names, It’s very clear that cats and dogs can respond to their names, it just depends on how closely the relationship between man and animal had been established.
There must have been loose relationships between humans and dogs as well where the dogs just stayed close to human groups, sounding alerts and mooching food. Maybe they didn’t get names. I think this still happens in some parts of the world, some cities are filled with strays.
People even now occasionally name specific wild animals. I can easily see humans, somewhere around the dawn of language, saying to each other ‘Watch out for old One Tusk down by the waterhole, she’s half starved and her mood is nasty!’
So I suspect we’ve been doing it, in occasional cases, for about as long as we’ve been naming anything.
My WAG is when we got more than one, even if that was simply “the grey one” and “the brown one.” Heck, I’d imagine giving a wolf-dog a name and it learning to respond to it was part of the domestication process.
Various old sagas given names for animals here and there (not always for pets). E.g., in Norse sagas you have Fenrir a wolf and Jörmungandr a huge snake.
Tales of this nature would have existed would have existed a very long time ago in most if not all cultures.
Note that there is a perceived connection between gods and animals. E.g., Athena is sometimes represented as an owl, if not originally an owl herself. And naming gods is a pretty common thing. (Even if the label is something like “Our Lady”. The difference between a label with a meaning and a name didn’t matter back then. Unlike today where “Butch” doesn’t mean squat.)
So the name of an animal/god was also probably common going back to when humans first started to differentiate gods by name. To name a pet would have been natural. Esp. since most pets recognize their names and respond to them.
A little sad that I was beaten to quoting On Hunting, but I’ll add that this is is something that ebbs and flows. Horses eg were named sometimes in ancient times, rarely in early medieval times, then more and more.
Edit: does anyone remember that gravestone for a dog with a sentimental remembrance written on it?
No matter when it was, it was after the cats started naming themselves. But those names, no human research can discover, but the Cat itself knows, and will never confess.
Inspired by the Voynich thread, I just re-read Chadwick’s The Decipherment Of Linear B. (It’s still a good read.)
In it, he gives examples of the names of oxen found in the old Linear B tablets, converted to English equivalents: Dapple, Darkie, Whitefoot, Winey, Blondie and Bawler. All from over 3 thousand years ago.
Note that while these names appear on tablets, the state of literacy at the time was minimal so presumably the people giving the names were not literate. There’s no reason to believe that anyone herding animals at the dawn of agriculture wouldn’t also name them.
and how long did it take for cave people to realize 95% of the creatures called cat will never come to their name unless the word “dinnertime” follows it
missed the edit:and how long did it take for cave people to realize 95% of the creatures called cat will never come to their name unless the word “dinnertime” follows it so they could slowly walk over peer down and disdainfully sniff at it and then look at you like " what’s with this slop again? didn’t we make it clear we didn’t like it the first time human?
Actually, when did we start feeding cats? from books and the like it ive seen seems that cats were expected to find their own food… I know things like cat litter didn’t exist until the 30s and I’ve been told cat food started as a way for canneries to get rid of fish waste people couldn’t/didn’t eat … so maybe late 18 early 1900s for the upper classes ? i remember great relatives being aghast that grandma bought cat food and litter …
At that time, most of our interactions with cats probably involved our being the dinner.
It might be possible to find a definite date for the first sales of food specifically processed for that purpose; but I expect people started tossing fish guts and other odds and ends to the cats, letting them help clean out greasy pans, and so on long before modern cat food was invented.