Pudding: Wildcat my mum rescued. Not sure of the reason for naming it. Pudding II: Named after the first cat. Tiddles: My decision, finally approved after thinking of dozens of names. Traditional cat name. Sam: Named after the manager of Bolton Wanderers at the time. I don’t like calling animals by human first names, so it merged into Spam, then Spamwich. Magnus Emerson O’Puss: A combination of Emerson (my idea after my favourite band at the time) and Magnus O’Puss (my dad’s idea). Normally shortened to Mag, Magnus or occasionally Emerson. Lucy: Short for Lucifer as she’s quite temperamental. My sister calls her Pretty (you wouldn’t know she was eighteen when she named it that). Jackson: All black, and we got him around the same time Michael Jackson died. I prefer to think it’s after Samuel L.
I had in mind Zebulon as a cat’s name for about 25 years till I metthe cat who it fit. It’s from the Bible, so his sister is Jezebel, which, luckily, fits her very well – her nick is Mini Minx. (Zeb’s nicknames are Bunyip Boy – that would take way too long to explain for how entertaining the payoff is – and Chunky Monkey, because he’s very solidly built, though not fat.)
I’m someone who loves naming things, but I didn’t personally name any of our current pets.
My friend named her kitten PC, short for Psycho Cat, and then gave her to me. I kept her name because she knew it but usually refer to her as Peace… I hate the name PC anyway and, being so computer-geeky, people think I’ve lamely named my cat Personal Computer.
My ex had his heart set on getting a Burmese kitten and calling her Muffin, and I was happy to go along with that. Muffin is loosely named after the St Bernard in that one episode of Police Squad! (Ring of Fear/A Dangerous Assignment).
My current chose Moby’s name (she’s a Border Collie), although I think his brother-in-law actually suggested it. He already had Moby when we met.
Years ago I wanted to get a dog and name it Wrigglesworth (Wriggles for short), but I wasn’t involved in naming our dog, and then my brother named his cat Mr Bigglesworth so that one is off the table now. I did have dogs that I named Hoover and Memnoch in the distant past but both are long gone.
Lucy came to us with the name Fluffy (she was originally named by kids in a trailer park where she was found). At first, I wanted to call her Fluffernutter, but that name didn’t quite work. The day we brought her home, she spent a lot of time doing cat things that are verboten in my home, of course she didn’t know that. I had to run to the store, came home to find her on the counter.
[Ricky Ricardo] “Luuucy, you ha’ some es’splainin’ to do!”[/RR]
Ergo, Lucy. She is called Lucifer when in deep doodoo.
The terror twins are: Mayme and Dot. The Mayme pic is super kitteh, she now looks more like a ‘real’ cat. She had to have a M name, due to the major tabby M on her brow. I had a great-aunt named Mayme who was a doll, and the name just fit. Dot came with her name, annointed by a bunch of teenaged stoners. She was named Dot because… she has a white dot on the top of her noggin. I tend to call her Little Bit, as she was the runt of the litter and still is a little bit of cat.
My wife and I acquired our two female Maine Coons at 1 year old. One is a very pretty kitty who carries herself quite daintily. The other is a bit scruffier and is more adventurous and mischievous.
So we plumbed our knowledge of literature and the fine arts to find a pair of girl’s names that fit these attributes, and finally settled on Daphne and Velma. (And it always surprises us how many people don’t get the reference.)
P.S. This is the first time I’ve posted in a pet thread like this, and yes, I know the rule. If I have time I’ll put some pix up tonight. They are very cute kitties!
Dogs - Maggie the standard poodle is named because Rod Stewart was singing about Maggie on the radio when I went to pick her up. Sophie the giant Schnauzer just as a stout, comical look about her. Jake’s name was Hercules when I adopted him. That was too long, but I wanted to go with something thatsounded a bit like Herc. Pat the English setter was named after one of my grandfather’s favorite dogs. Undoubtedly, my Irish grandfather wouldn’t be happy I have an English setter. Andy and Wylie Dufresne, adopted together at the last minute from a high-kill pound. Andy Dufresne is the character who swims through a river of crap and comes out victorous on the other side of the prison walls. Wylie Dufresne is a popular molecular gastronomist.
Cats - Papi is short for papillon, French for butterfly. When she was a kitten she didn’t seem tied to the earth. Spike was my niece’s cat, and he was supposed to stay with me for a couple weks while her apartment complex dealt with a mold issue. She never wanted him back - he was in that annoying attack-everything stage when I got him. Nick was taken from someone giving away kittens in a Wal-mart parking lot. It was storming that day, and I thought Nick Storm sounded like a TV detective. Sabrina came from the pound with that name.
Horses - Irish’s registered name is Donnybrook Lad. I’d wanted to call him Irish Lad, but the jockey club told me that was already taken. Nakota’s registered name is Tracewinds Nakota, and she was 20 when I got her. I just call her Nakota. Peanut was the name of the mini I brought at a real eastate auction.
This is Joey. I adopted him as a kitten and had been waiting for a couple of days to figure out his name when he pounced on my face at 4:30 in the morning. I said, “Joey, stop it!” and a few seconds later sat up and said, “Wait a minute, who’s Joey? I guess that’s you, huh?”
This is Oliver. I was trying to come up with a name for him and I had a list of about 20 names that I liked for him so I started saying them out loud one by one. He ignored me until I came to Oliver, at which point he turned his head and looked at me as if to say, “Finally, you figured it out!”
This is Koira (pronounced Coy-rah) our newest family member. Koira is the Finnish word for dog and we adopted her about a month after we got back from our honeymoon in Finland, hence the name. She is a french bulldog and is about the sweetest little girl the world has ever known.
Mushka (M[jɪˈrɨ]shka) - Tortoise shell cat that’s more trouble than she’s worth. The name means “little mouse” in Russian. (It can also be mispronounce to mean “little fly” or “little bear”.)
Simone was semi-feral when she was found wandering around a redneck sort of town. We thought a fancy, feminine French name was perfect for a rough, uneducated little pit bull. She’s turned into a nurturer, who looks after the other animals and licks them to encourage them.
Sadie, our mix (probably AmStaff/Basset/Beagle?) came to us with that name, but it fits her so well…she loves cuddling people and is tricolored, and Sadie sounds like someone who makes quilts.
Scritch, our budgie, we named after “scritches” (when you preen a bird’s head with your fingernails). Unfortunately, she doesn’t like to get scritches, although she does love bathing…sometimes I call her “Waterduck” as a nickname.
Happy the Hamster we adopted just last weekend from a nice Korean lady who had to give her up.
The rest of them have names other people gave them before we took them in, that don’t fit for various reasons.
Lefty the cat doesn’t have any distinguishing marks on either side. He does have a black mustache, making him a kitler (cats who look like Hitler).
Cosmo the cockatiel is something of a complainer and very fussy, not particularly cosmopolitan.
Buddie the cockatiel is…a girl. She’s very calm and well-balanced, but she’s not rally anyone’s buddy; she spends a lot of time alone, sitting on unfertilized eggs (repeated efforts to get her out of her laying/nesting cycle have been fruitless; we even had her on hormone shots until the vet told us not to bother).
Wicked, who isn’t. (Tortie) Ari (Ariat), her brother. (B&W tuxedo) E, so called because as a semi feral kitten the only way I could get him to come out from under the bed was to call “ee-oo-ee-oo-ee-ooo!” in a stupid squeaky voice. (All gray) Elsie (All black) Handsome, who is. (All black w/ bedroom eyes) Whiskers (G&W Tuxedo) Mouse, who appeared behind my feeds bins as a kitten, so scrawny I thought he was a rodent. (All gray) Chloe (Stunning dark calico) Rose(aka Fuzzbutt or Rosebutt), who still has prickles even when she’s sweet (Gray tabby, and my only longhaired cat)
Dogs:
Jack the wimpy GSD (oh, sorry, German Shepherd Dog :p) Willow black Lab
Horses:
Holly (Holiday Bonus) AQHA mare Keogh, her 1/2 TB son named for my mom’s side of the family, as he was as close as she was going to get to a grandkid (she never got to see him though ) Spot, who is a plain chestnut Archie, 30+ and still chugging along Geronimo, a captive bred Mustang Ariel, a tiny lavender pony Bootsie, a not-so-tiny bay pony
I do love animals
PS I thought about adding picture links to them all, but thought that might be obnoxious, given the quantity.
Ours: Angel, part blue heeler, part hound - the hound part is all attention hound. She was adopted from Mississippi Animal Rescue League, and to the best of our figuring, just turned one on February 20th. Our son named her.
MIL: Smudge. Big, black, obnoxious cat. He’s about 8 years old and grumpy as all get out. He likes two people in the house: MIL and me. When we got Angel, that kept the cat away from the kids. He got that name because they pulled him out of the chimney before they moved: he was just a kitten then. His nicknames are often Lucifer, demon and The Cat From Hell.
OtherKitty (Say it fast): A stray cat that we feed and let sleep inside in the winter. Most likely coming with us whenever we move. The name comes from back before we laid claim to him, when we referred to him as “the other kitty”. Timmy: Golden Gecko that a person brought into the pet store that I worked at because their neighbor didn’t want him anymore and was going to flush him down the toilet.
There’s also MidgetKitty (say that one fast too) who is another stray that comes around. We make no claim to her, though.. We just feed her since she’s so darned small and skinny. She also reminds me a lot of Mushka, being a moody tortoiseshell as well.
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