Please share with me your dog’s and cat’s names and how you decided on that particular name?
My Maine Coon is named Bertrand after Bertrand Russell, (Bertrand Russell - Wikipedia) a man I have admired all my adult life.
“Bertie” is a quiet kitty, and very loving and loyal. When D and I (because of my snoring so loudly) need to sleep in separate bedrooms, he makes sure he spends time sleeping with both of us pretty much equally, as if he’s trying to be fair.
To me, that’s a very good example of an animal’s (pet’s) “philosophy”.
That’s very basic, I know, but I’m looking forward to reading yours.
The first two are from Firefly. Cade was originally Kaley, but he turned out to be a boy, so we changed it to Cade. He’s named for Cade Foster from the TV show First Wave.
I don’t have any dogs or cats right now. Our last dog, a dalmatian, was named Siren. She is one of a long line of dalmatians owned by my former firefighter/paramedic SO, all of whom had names relating to fire or firehouse equipment. I told him the next time we get a dog, we’re naming her Muffler. Siren lived up to her name all too well. She’s now enjoying life on a farm. No, really! Our little apartment yard just wasn’t working out for her, so we Craigslisted her to an awesome family moving to a farm in Maryland.
We’ve still got a fish, though, a Betta, mostly dark red with some gorgeous blue/teal highlights. He doesn’t need a yard. His name is Darwin.
My cats are named Emma, Molly, and Ariel. My Molly is not named after Janeway’s dog. It just seemed like a fitting name. Emma and Ariel are named after Emma Frost and a combination of The Little Mermaid and Kitty Pryde.
Sebastiandied about a year and a half ago. Someone else named him after the crab from The Little Mermaid, hence Ariel, but I retroactively named him after both him and Sebastian Shaw, hence Emma.
My Max-cat is named after the little boy in Where the Wild Things Are, since he loves the Wild Rumpus so much.
I thought I was being quite clever with that, it wasn’t until later I discovered that Max is the most common pet name in America. (But Max is from Bulgaria and it is not a common pet name there! It’s actually very close to the Bulgarian word for “kitten”, and people kept mishearing and thinking that was his name. Come on, I’m more original than that!)
When we adopted Sylvie, her name was Sissy, which is a name I despise. But she was an adult, and we didn’t want to confuse her too much, so we picked something we liked that sounded kind of like Sissy.
Mirabel came from the pound, and it’s just a name I liked. No significance.
Olivewas found, massively pregnant, in a farm field before Christmas. We named the puppies reindeer names, and someone on this board suggested Olive (the other reindeer) for mama.
Wallywas originally Wallaby, just because it seemed to fit, and it got shortened.
We’ve got a Boris, a maltese/shihtzu cross, who really doesn’t live up to his tough-guy name. Fluffy or Princess might have been more apt.
And Daphne, ('cos she certainly didn’t smell like a rose when we adopted her). She’s a Smithfield cattle-dog (Stumpy-tailed Cattle Dog) cross Black Labrador and as cute as a button…but has no tail.
When I was a child, I was in charge of naming the cats we had, and so being a practical sort back then, I usually named them after their physical traits, i.e. Fluffy, Black Foot, Nosey, (he had a big black patch on his nose.)
When I got older, I named my cats after whatever caught my fancy at the time.
A cinnamon colored tabby (female) : Figara, after my favorite opera character.
An all black male: Rasputin. I was a big Tom Baker fan. He played the mad monk in Nicholas and Alexandra. I wasn’t about to call a male cat Tom. Too boring.
A dusty calico female: Swipesy, after one of my favorite Scott Joplin ragtime piano pieces.
An orange tabby male: Shupiluliumiash. Shuppy for short. I wanted a nice loooong name. Shupiluliumiash was a Hittite king from long ago who had 65 children, not all with the same woman of course. Recently, they’ve started spelling his name Shupiluliuma, to my great disgust. It was either Shupiluliumiash or the Babylonian Shamash-Shuma-Ukin. Lately, I’ve developed a fondness for Shamash-Shuma-Ukin. He could be shortened to Ukky! How cute would that be? Maybe next kitty.
Sadly, of all my cats, only Shuppy still survives. He’s seventeen. He’ll be eighteen next month.
Our last dog, a dalmatian, was named Siren. She is one of a long line of dalmatians owned by my former firefighter/paramedic SO, all of whom had names relating to fire or firehouse equipment. I told him the next time we get a dog, we’re naming her Muffler. Siren lived up to her name all too well. She’s now enjoying life on a farm. No, really! Our little apartment yard just wasn’t working out for her, so we Craigslisted her to an awesome family moving to a farm in Maryland.
