Nick, blue collar, is from a litter that used the theme of ‘time’ in all the puppies’ names; his registered name is Stonemist Nick of Time. I got him 2 weeks after I lost my old Gordon Girl Fancy to cancer, so he is named appropriately. Kharma’s reg. name is Schujan’s Must Be Kharma. I was living with my dad at the time I got her, and wanted to name her Sizzle, but he didn’t like the name at all, so we were tossing other names out while we were on our way to a psychic fair. We both liked Kharma. As we were paying our admission, the ticket woman said ‘there’s a discussion on karma just starting’. Dad and I looked at one another and burst out laughing. So Kharma she is!
Cricket, Papillon. I just liked the name Cricket
Bunny, Papillon:
Our local zoo had an elephant named Bunny for many, many years, and they sent her down to an elephone sanctuary in Tennessee. On the weekend I bought my puppy, the elephant Bunny died. I named my puppy after her in her memory.
Cat, Ruby-she came with the name from the rescue and I liked it, so I kept it:
Cat Charlie and Rat Terrier Sammy:
Charlie was rescued from a burning abandoned house by a firefighter; he was burned over half of his body and the rescue organization that took him in named him Char. I just couldn’t keep that name so Charlie he became. He is the sweetest, most DOG-LIKE cat ever. Sammy was a stray that came to my house; I tried to find his wner, then tried to find him a home and no one wanted him. By that time he and my Papillon Bunny were bonded, so he’s staying. I just thought he looked like a Sammy.
Maggie: She was a rescue and that was her name already.
Yoshi: That’s what she would answer to. (Yup, she was a cat.)
Bronte: My wife wouldn’t let me name the dog Hemmingway.
My current dog’s name is Barley… Because I like drinking beer and hops sounds silly.
I tend to name mine after demons, terrorists, or mass murdering dictators, so I’ve had a Joe Stalin (parrot) and an Azazel (parrot who lived up to her name) plus just plain Demon (another parrot.)
I named one of my cockatiels Cocky Waddles after my college roomate called the bird cock wad when it wouldn’t let him turn on the radio in the morning.
When I was a kid I had a large black cat that bit people. I wanted to name it Psychopath but my mother convinced me this was illegal. I think she was afraid that if I leaned out the door and yelled “Here, Psychopath!” all the neighbors would show up.
When we got our first Boxer my husband and daughter argued over name selections for hours. Eventually they each settled on their favorite and refused to budge. His was Joe (because it was a Boxer) and she wanted to call him Muffin. I combined them and altered a little - Mujo sounded way too much like Kujo - and we ended on Mojo.
Kaia came to us with her name but we altered the spelling a little - it was Kaya on the paperwork.
Oh and Superhal, I always use the first pet I can remember for those security questions - I talk about the puppies too much for current ones to be safe as password retrieval tools.
Binkley’s the only one of our current crop we named (after Michael Binkley from Bloom County; we figured a shelter dog was bound to have an anxiety closet).
Scarlett just popped out of my wife’s mind when I asked (after the fact) what she’d name a female kitten if I got one. She’s a big GWTW fan.
Cuervo is an orange male DSH. I rescued him when he was barely three weeks old, he’d been abandoned, found and given to my vet, who thought of me. He had a severe URI, worms, and of course was not yet old enough to be weaned. He lived in a spare bathroom under quarantine for the first three weeks I had him. He’s named after the drink because he’s about the same color, and is tougher than hell.
Bear also goes by Lovie at least by the women-folk. He’s a black Maine Coon mix. He has the build of a beanbag, but the ears and fur of a Maine Coon.
They also come equipped with nicknames. Respectively, those are Fat Ass, Good Boy and Butthead
Kola – our cat’s name came from a list of names which my wife’s students had pulled together for use by an animal shelter, from various sources, including an atlas. The name came from the Kola Peninsula in Russia, known for being the home base of the Soviets’ Northern Fleet. However, my wife later also discovered that Kola is apparently the Lakota word for “friend.”
Our late pets were:
Mercury – a big gray tabby, his name came from the fact that he purred so loudly, my wife decided that he sounded like a Mercury outboard boat motor, fighting against the waves.
Shadow – a little black dog (corgi / Schipperke mix). Her name came from her tendency, as a puppy, to follow my wife wherever she went.
Max – a Brittany spaniel / golden retriever mix, and one of the smartest dogs I’ve ever known. He was named for Max, the Grinch’s dog.
When we got our first two cats, we agreed that my wife and I would each name one. She chose Trudy, after Gertrude Stein, and I chose Lisa, after Lisa Simpson. When we got our newest cat, he named himself. He was a scrawny kitten, with a pronounced naturally frowny tough-looking brow. We had to choose a touhh name, and went with Butch.
We’ve got a bunch of pets in the house right now. At the moment we have Ponch, who is ‘my cat’; he was named Ponch when we adopted him, and we decided not to change it. His nick name, though, is Boo, or Boo-boo (or Boo-kitty or any other silly rendition I care to use at the moment) which came about when I began calling him Ponch-Boo, then just Boo, then. . .you know.
The rest of our animals were all named by mudgirl (to be fair, most of them are her animals); we have another cat, Stryper, so named because he’s stripey. I changed the spelling to make it ‘edgier’.
Three snakes: a large ball python named Spot because, well, he’s spotted. An albino corn snake named Steve, because he “seemed like a Steve”. A young corn snake named Flame because he’s a light terra cotta color with bright coral markings down his back.
Then there are the two dwarf hamsters, Lightning and Brownie, and the guinea pig named Ninja, because he’s almost all black, so he’s very hard to see in the dark.
There was Big Nuts. He had enormous swollen testicles.
Romeo. He was the best, he was probably a former inside pet, and would follow me around like a dog. Romeo because it was like he was romancing me.
Roscoe. He was a very sick feral kitten. My wife found him almost dead, had an emotional breakdown, and took him to the vet. She decided that he needed a strong name, and, to her, Roscoe was it. He died a few days later.
Cobalt and Rhodium (and pregnant me cluttering up Rhodium’s picture).
We were sitting in IHOP, discussing what to name the new kittens, when my husband pulled a laminated periodic table out of his wallet and suggested we look at chemical names. (Yes, we are geeks - why do you ask?) Cobalt and Rhodium are even in the same chemical family, so if we get another cat, we will have to name him/her Iridium.
Great thread, Q.!
When my son was little, he picked the names of the cats, so our two first cats were Minette and Pussy (pronounced Poo-see). Minette lived to the ripe age of 21, and she was the perfect cat, a grey tabby. Pussy was not a purebred, but his coat was bluish grey.
When Minette died, my son was studying Classics and archaeology (main interest Hellenistic Egypt, so our cats had rather dignified names: Ishtar, Athena-Gaia (Aggie), Wotan. Now my son has cats of his own (Isis, Nabu, Nike and Patch- the latter his wife’s choice).
My two cats are rescues: Loki was from the SPCA and didn’t have a name. He suits the name. Ziva was rescued and living in a foster home. The lady who fostered her called her Ziva because she was a fan of NCIS. As “Ziva” means “brilliance” in Hebrew, it suits this little calico cat who’s the smartest cat I’ve ever met. This is not a good pic, but it shows them both: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v230/MoodIndigo1/ZivaJuly2.jpg This one shows her alone: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v230/MoodIndigo1/Ziva1.jpg
We lost Seeatee, a C-A-T, at 17+ years a couple of weeks ago. He had been insulin dependent for 10 years and weighed 24 pounds at one point.
Fluffy a cat who is, well, fluffy.
Jezebel, a cat named by my daughter for reasons known only to her.
stretch the super d duper, he is the chosen one. i saw him in the window waiting to be adopted, and knew he was my guy. he is a gorgeous siamese-tabby mix. chocolate siamese and black/silver tabby with light aqua eyes. the first thing he did when i brought him home was fall over and stretch and stretch and stretch.
he is a special cat. he was exposed to distemper in utero so he has motor skill problems. he has gotten better at moving around and jumping and trying jumps while trying to keep up with…
koritsa the klimber. she is my find, my treasure find. i found her on the street, she let me pick her up and she has been with me ever since. a wee red tabby girl (not quite 7 lbs) with long legs that propel her up on very high things. tops of doors, cabinets, windows… and into dropped ceilings. she thinks that hvac ducts and electrical wires are there for her to use as race ways. she constantly frustrates the boys as she flies around and gets way out of their reach.
lager the lovey dovey. he is my gift (and yes, he just keeps on giving). he was given to me in a budweiser box, by a guy who was looking to find a new home for him (“hey lady, could you take a kitten?”). i asked the fellow giving him up what his name is and he said the cat doesn’t have a name. the man also told me that the cat was a 6 month old girl. turned out to be a 3 month old boy. he is mostly white with spots of red tabby, and looks like he stole a red tabby tail from another cat. one friend calls his tail, a weave!
he is a very big boy who needs a wrestling companion (and has one with stretch, koritsa does not appreciate wrestling), he loves to cuddle up and get lots of pets, strokes, and attention. his very keen mind is constantly working. lager is also mr talky (one reason i chose stretch was to have a talky cat. turns out stretch doesn’t talk much.) and will hold conversations with you. he will act up and knock things off of tables and walls until you give him hugs and pay attention to him. he ends up in the “time out” room a lot.
My shelter-adopted kitty came with the name Niagara. I don’t know where she got that name or why, but it was far too big for her. My husband & I started calling her Squirt because she’s kitten-sized but fully grown. Squirt has stuck. It has to be said with an uplifting squeak in your voice. Squirt!
Sorry, no pics. I’m at work & can’t even view other people’s pics.
Havoc and **Pixel **are named for literary cats - Havoc from George R. R. Martin’s Tuf Voyaging, Pix from Heinlein’s The Cat Who Walked Through Walls. Caelan picked out his name from a list I read to him, and Brindle is.
Kimber got spayed yesterday but she’s a trooper, we’re proud of her.
