Pet names

How creative are you when it comes to naming your pet? Apparently I am lacking in that area, though it wasn't always my fault. I have had four dogs named Sam/Sammy, two named Abbey and one named Roxie, which seem to be pretty common names for dogs, and maybe cats? My ex had a German Shepard named Samson,Sam for short. I had a male cocker spaniel named Sam, as did my husband when I met him. I have a Yorkie that came to live with me about a year ago, named Sammy.

Years ago, I had a female cocker named Abbey and I now have a Pomeranian named Abbey, her sister's name is Roxie. I should have named them the Barker Sisters! Why do Pomeranians bark so much? I do have a black and white cocker spaniel now, that I named Tuxedo.

Lets hear the creative names DUers come up with for their pets! Nicknames included.

Lumpy is Richard's nick; Harry-Head is Harry's

Daddy is so named because he's Petey & Toby's daddy

Petey's nick is Petey-Boy; Toby's is Toe-Man.

Cocoa is so named because when she was tiny, she had brown fur. What was brown is now black. Her nickname is Wenchzilla.

the basset hounds I grew up with:

Bishop
Deacon (my dad's a preacher)
Dexter (after my little sister's shoes)

I also had a canary with black around his eyes. his name was Kimosabe.

dogs are Moses (because we found him abandoned in the driveway, which is almost like bullrushes, and Doc (short for Dr. Dana Scully)

Cats are Honey, Calvin, Ralph and Max

A female cat named "Kisa" and now a tomcat named "Romulus", though he is usually called "Fluffytail". Those are the only pets I've ever named.

Dogs should not be given names that do not begin with a hard consonant. They respond better to a name like "Carl" than they do to a name like "Cindy". It's twoo.

My kitties

Geneva is named after my grandmother- I wanted to name a daughter after her if I ever had one...

Annie is named after Annie Savoy from Bull Durham



Geneva's nickname is Mimi;
Annie's is Stinkerbell

aka "the sherminator", "sherman the vermin", "flexi-boy", or the ever popular "freakish mutant dog"

We have a cat named Cabiria, after a character in the Federico Fellini movie "Nights of Cabiria," about a streetwise but tender hearted prostitute. We also have a male cat named Dodger, short for the Artful Dodger in "Oliver Twist." We found him in the alley behind our downtown building as a kitten, so he is definitely a street urchin, but VERY appealing. Then there's Coney, named because she is as soft as a rabbit -- Coney is the Dutch word for rabbit (like Coney Island) -- and is a brindle color just like an old rabbit fur coat my daughter had 20 years ago.

Our other cats are more ordinary -- Onyx and Opal (a little black gem and a little gray gem) -- and Smokey. We are thinking of renaming Smokey "Smokey Jones" in honor of Smarty Jones, the racehorse.

Can't wait to hear some other people's pet names!

A big yellow cat that was a stray. My son named him Indiana Jones. Nickname is Indy. That cat is cool! Has a great personality!

I was going to get a corn snake, so I decided to name it Sheikh the Snake. The breeder suggested Sheikh Yerbouti instead. (A Frank Zappa album.) Sheikh turned out to be a girl.

Then, I was going to get a ghost corn snake for my stepson. I would have named him Sam Wheet or Sammy, but the stepson named him Casper.

Common Corn Snake :hi:

Is that your snake? They are such unbelievably sweet animals.

I snagged that pic from south mountain reptiles... Snakeage has a little more orange between the dark markings, but this one looks a lot like him, otherwise.

He is a sweetheart.

I was wondering what kind of snake it was. She (or he) was huge, lived in the basement or outside and I really only saw it once when I was remodeling the kitchen and banging a hammer. The house had actually been vacant for awhile and I was just working on it when I saw it. Scared me, of course. But it never bothered me or my dogs. I never had mice. But I guess it died or left since I now have mice in the winter.

Bella (Bassett hound) (rescued, destined to die by shotgun)
Rudy (Memphis mutt-found abandoned at 6 wks in street, now 85 lbs,)
Pal (rescued collie)
Viuva (malnourished and weak--street rottweiller dog in Rio)
Mikey (beagle Basset, abandoned and run over by a car)

He has two. Both are rosy boases(sp?) Anyway, he loves them!

Named my rabbits Dolce & Vita after the Italian phrase La Dolce Vita which means "the sweet life" or "the good life." But broken down the words separately apply to each rabbit's personality because Dolce ("sweet") refers to our shy but so so sweet bunny and Vita (life, vitality) was given to our carefree, risk-taking, full-of-life bunny that seems to have nine lives! Their names truly match them!

http://community.webshots.com/album/140833763LmBXSn

By the way, I also have a Pomeranian - Morgan - and we got very lucky in that she's very mild-tempered and doesn't have the "typical" barking personality that many Poms have.

On edit: OH, since you brought up nicknames....we call the rabbits "dillholes" (I don't know why...my husband came up with that one...don't worry it's affectionate, not meant to be insulting), "rabbitheads" and "Hobbitses" (comes from Gollam in LOTR) and we call Morgan "honkydog" and "honk" because when you pick her up she kind of makes a strained honking sound from squeezing her too tight (she's a little weighty ;-)

My Poms, bark at anything, everyone, and EVERYTHING that moves! It drives us crazy! But we love them!

*Humbug* who is the cheeriest, happiest bird I have ever known.

My first cat was Kitty till she had kittens. Then she was Momma Cat.
Her first born, a male was Tom

Later on there was Katie, then Navin (named after the character in the Jerk...yes he was kinda dumb that way). Katie had a kitten who looked just like her, so she was KJ. (Katie Jr.) Later, Katie had another litter, and we named the one we kept Socks, for obvious reasons.

We now have seven roaming the house, five of which are ours:

TC, a green-eyed gray 20 pounder. TC = Tiny Cat
Tigger, a 15 pound gray tabby who once bounced around like the tiger for whom he was named
Motley, a petite playful cat, mostly black with flecks of orange and white all over.
Pumpkin, her extra-affectionate brother, long-haired and orange, named by my son
Feller, our newest, a gray and black tabby, but my sons call him Squeaks

We're also housing my mother-in-law's two, Pixie and Sylvie, two loving gray girls.

those bulging eyes. We named him after Louie Armstrong. Everyone says its perfect.

My cats are generally called "cat". I've got two at the moment so that doesn't work so one is called Smokey (sort of a grey colour) and (Tiger - tiger-striped tabby)

My dogs are variants of royalty (Duke, Princess)

Simba was named for the "Lion King" because he looked exactly like the little Simba when he was being held up and presented to the kingdom. Montana was named for Joe Montana because like Joe, he had the most gorgeous blue eyes (which turned yellow years ago). My late kitty Fergus's full name was Maynard Ferguson (named by a jazz fan friend who had him before me), and I also have a late kitty named Guinevere (I love the King Arthur story).

My future cats (after Simba and Monty pass on, perish the thought) will be named Morrissey and Hornsby (for Morrissey and Bruce Hornsby). My husband will have no say in the matter; I have thus decided!

...Because I got him shortly after I left the army and a Field Marshall outranks a general. I wanted my dog to outrank anyone I ever met in the army. Afterwards it was pointed out to me how appropriate the name was for a German Shepard. So it worked at multiple levels.

My other dog is named Lucy because that was her name when we got her from the shelter.

My cat is named Max. His name was Whisper when we got him from the shelter but I thought it was dumb and cats don't answer to their name anyway.

Our cats. The mother, solid white, is Tiny. Her orange tabby sons are Bevo and Tex. Her solid white son and daughter are Omar and Pearl. The kids are all from the same litter. We have had them for ten years now.

2 cats - Pumpkin and Gizmo
2 Gerbils - Quickster and Snowbell
1 Rat - Fancy
1 Lizard - Lizzy
1 Frog - Spotty
and a hermit crab who's name I have forgotten right now.

:silly: Do we have kids???

I live with a lovely Cocker Spaniel named Ranger Rick. He has many nicknames- Rickey, Richard (when he is unsavory), T, Ted, Theodore, Mitch Mitchel and Mitch T. Not sure how they all happened, but he responds to them all. The Cocker Spaniel I had for 13 years was Aurora Chloe and the Schnauzer we had in high school was Wendi Miller. I hate boring companion animal names! :shrug:

whew!

named Kitty Yellow.

My sister has a cat named Mr. Kitty

but we just call her Mitzi.

-- Allen

I always wanted two dogs to name Seamus and Hubris. :)

Instead, mine are Krishna and Bodhi.

They come from this Siberian Husky kennel where all the dogs have long names, (like Thor's Arctic Poopyhead, or the like) so you know more about their lineage or something. Then they have "call" names, names you'd use dogsledding ("Poopy"). Interestingly, all these Sibes are the copper (orange, red, brown, whatever) color.

Through a twist of genetics, they had one born a few years ago who was black and white, not copper. They named him (and I'm making up the Thor part to protect the guilty) Thor's Affirmative Action.

Worse still, his call name: "Token". :eyes:

Large breed mutts: Strype, Blanco, Popo, Ali
Small breed pures: Howie, Loki (both dachshunds), Charile (beagle), Niña (chihuahua
Cats: C.C., Clifton, Tica, Milton

and my ferrets are Akira and Tetsuo. I don't know how creative the names are, but we like them.

Eleanor- For the Beatles song "Eleanor Rigby"

Coleman - for the phony name the Goldmans use in "The Birdcage", and also because he's all gray.

My parrotlet (pictured in my sig) is named Grace, following the definition of the word 'grace' as a gift from God. This is because parrotlets are such adorable little birds, that I can't help thinking of them as gifts from God.

and Wes Clark! Wanna be friends? LOL Which species is Attila?

Attila is a Senegal parrot. He lives with my ex right now, but I have visitation rights. LOL It's all good 'cause my ex and I are good friends and since Attila totally bonded with him, that's where he belongs.

From your name, I assume you have an African Grey. Congo or Timneh? I love greys, but never got one because of not having as much time to spend with him as he would deserve. Tell me about him/her. Do you have any other birds? I used to have some budgies, who have since passed on.

Birds are the best! :-)

and I like Senegals too; they can really be little clowns. My grey, Humbug, is a Congo. She's two years old and learning to talk. You're right that they need a lot of attention, H is always active and wanting an audience. She likes to do Jackass-type stunts and nearly gives me heart failure. She's pictured in the DU Gallery with me.

Most of the DUers seem to be cat lovers and I enjoy seeing the stories and pictures but I've noticed that birds are woefully underrepresented here. I was so happy to see another bird and Wes Clark admirer. Humbug helped me out of my funk when the General dropped out, I was so disappointed. Every time I see a thread suggesting that he could be Kerry's VP, I get my hopes up again.

was Frumpy. :)

Then I have my calico cat--Michelle.

Two outside cats--Spot (though she's mostly stripes) and Big Boy (or Biggie). :)

Bonus points to anyone that knows the Piwacket reference!

Common name for witch's familiar.

Originally from a pamphlet published by Matthew Hopkins, witch-hunter extraordinaire, in the 17th century, I believe.

Do I win?

the reference I was thinking was the cat in the movie Bell, Book and Candle. Of course, it belonged to a witch, so youre right! Kim Novak was the witch I believe.

has been named Pyewacket after the bell, book , & candle cat!

after the grateful song.

A Newfoundland dog named Smudge.
A pug named Hoover.
A cat named Toots.
A cat named Boomer.
A cat named Bugs.

Maxwell
Lucy
Jo Jo

and a cat named Gracie, but that's not a beatle name.

Tie Dye......I figured since she's calico she kind of came tie dyed so that's how she got it.

Tie Dye! And I thought naming my black and white cocker Tuxedo was original!

Aren't our animal friends just the best? They always give unconditional love without any strings attached!

Dog was Rocket
Cats were Grendel and Granger

was the name of our late basset/bloodhound mix. She died, though.

Starfire is our latest pound mutt.

young.

We're thinking of getting a cat too (which is good because dogs annoy me) since my daughter is finally getting allergy shots. :)

some of the less common, current and departed:

sasper, dingbat, doozer, chimney sweep, rain, frost, willow, fuzzy, charlotte, wild thing, clyde.

whose nose was bitten through our fence tonight! I don't know how it started but my other dogs were going crazy and so I run outside and there is a dumbass kid and his dumbass friend standing there watching their dog clamped onto my dogs face. I just started screaming at them and they pulled the dog away (fortunately it was on a leash). Also fortunately Tuk wasn't hurt too bad but the wire fence was bent so he got pulled through a ways. WTF!

over the past three decades...

Awaiting me at the Rainbow Bridge:

A cat named Mandy - A mostly white cat with a small black/brown tabby spot in the middle of her back and a striped tail - named after the main character in "Band Of Angels" (the daughter of a slave owner and a slave, raised as his white daughter but sold into slavery when he died and her parentage became known).

A cat named Ichabod - named after Ichabod Crane because he was the most timid scaredy-cat I've ever known.

A cat named Kipling - named after Kipling's "Just So" story about "The Cat That Walks Alone" because he was the sole survivor of a litter of barn cats, due to a raid by a roving tomcat.

A cat named Dickens - both because he was an orphan (Oliver Twist) and because he was a little dickens.

A cat named Mischa - named after a character in Vonda McIntyre's "The Exile Waiting" because she was exiled from the house of a co-worker's friend due to allergies.

A dog named Sirius, because he was the star of the house, and he knew it.

A dog named Rambeau - a tiny toy poodle with the heart of a warrior.

A cat named Pixel, because when first seen (from three stories up) she was a little black dot in the parking lot of an apartment complex.

Still with us:

Cats:

Ferguson - a kitten found in an alley, and clearly the "son" of a local feral cat we'd taken to calling "Fergus."

Puck - because small things started disappearing when he came to live with us (we knew he was taking them, because every once in a while we'd catch him with something, dropping it down the register or batting it under the couch).

Ciqala - it means the small one, and at one time, he was. Now he's a furry bowling ball cozy with feet.

Dogs:

Tasha YardThing - a two-fer who was named after Tasha Yar, for her life in the streets before we adopted her, and after the Yard Thing in C.J. Cherryh's Rusalka series, for her penchant for guarding the yard against squirrel incursions.

Arafel - named after the main character in C.J. Cherryh's "Arafel's Saga" because she's fey, wild and shy - but has an abiding devotion to the humans in her life.

Algeber is the correct spelling and pronunciation. Comes from the little rascals. They had a donkey named Algeber (like algebra, get it?)

Merlin II. My father in law had him first and gave him the name after the first Merlin. Now it's kind of a thing for us that our cats will always be black and always named Merlin. ;) Dog is Jessie, the one and only.

as in the Disney ("Pinocchio") Figaro.

Sometimes he's "Figgy" or "Figster."

When we got him from the pound he was called "Freddy" and he doesn't have a "Freddy" personality.

I have four cats...

Boy

Girl

White Boy

and Abigail

My girlfriend named Boy and Girl when she first got them (Socks and Sandy, respectively) but I could never remember their names, so Boy and Girl stuck.

White Boy is a totally white cat who was named Mr. White when we got him, but White Boy stuck

Abigail is my cat, (all black) and that was her name when we adopted her.

The horrible thing is that we adopted White Boy and Abigail together, and I'm white and my girlfriend's black. That was just so ironic and cute it makes me want to puke....

but we compromised on naming our mini long haired dachshund Scout and I chose his middle name, Wellstone.

this is what happens when English Lit majors get animals-

Oberon- from Shakespeare (and from Alien- it's the name of the ship)

Seamus- names after Seamus Heaney- poet

I have two cats -- Nightmare (black female) and Smoke (grey male son to Nightmare). I recently adopted a dog, and his name is Magic (black cocker spaniel). A friend of mine said all I needed was one more animal, so I could have Nightmare, Magic, Smoke, and Mirrors! LOL

My previous two dogs I didn't name. Babe was a St. Bernard. We couldn't think of a name, so we just called her 'babe'. My border collie was 3 years old when I got him and already had the name Bandit. When I was in the 3rd grade, I had a siamese cat I named Bagheera (after the panther in the Jungle Book. The disney film came out that year).

Cat - Stinky
Misty - Face
Heidi - Wiggles
Star - No nickname (never understood why)
Cider - Tcider
Dot - Little Cow; Micro
Bailey - Bailey Boy; Beagle Bailey

The dog's name is Max, after the rabbit in the 'Sam and Max' cartoons. If you ever saw his face, you'd know why -- he's got that same vapid grin. Not as smart as Max in the cartoon, though. Max is at least part Pomeranian (and I agree with you about the barking, he'd be perfect if not for that), but at 22 pounds, probably has something else in the mix. We don't know, he's from a shelter.

First Hubby and I had a cat named Norman Bates. When we got him from the 'free to good home' folks from whom we got him, he was a little dirtbag. 1st Hubby was on second shift, so he got in the shower while I went to the store for cat food and litter. Bates hopped into the shower with him and sat at his feet the whole time. First Hubby actually put him out several times, but Bates insisted on being in the shower. "If he likes the shower so much, we should call him Norman Bates," I remember saying. It stuck for 18 years -- he died in January of 2003. The ex had him, and took marvelous care of him.

Second hubby and I have four cats. First was adopted from a shelter, her name is Tink. My late father used to nickname animals tink, tinky or tinker, which is a shortening of stinker, but never actually named any of them that. She did, not incidentally, stink -- so we started calling her that. As she got older, the title of the Frank Zappa song 'Tink Walks Amok' was eerily appropriate, too, but I confess though Mr. Nownow and I are both Zappa fans, it didn't occur to us until later.

Second cat showed up at my mom's house. She couldn't leave Tink alone, when he brought her home, so we started out calling her Punk. Didn't last long, though -- somehow, she managed to tell us her name was Doodle, and that became her official name. She's a tortie with a little white on her belly, and crazy as a nun full of mice. Doodle couldn't possibly be a more appropriate name.

Third cat is officially named Gord, after the Ranger Gord character on 'The Red Green Show.' We actually are more inclined to call him Schnickelfritz, though, or Schnick. He answers to it better, probably because of the 'k' sound. We volunteer at a shelter, and he was stuck in a high cage, constantly whining if there were people in the room that nobody visited him enough, like the Ranger Gord character.

Last into the household was another tortie, who showed up on the patio of a restaurant while we were eating there, the night before we went to interview to adopt Max from the shelter. We started out jokingly calling her and the dog 'Sam and Max,' but Sam didn't fit her. She's got one of those tiny, creaky-door voices some cats have, and every time we'd say 'squeak' to her, she would. Ultimately, Squeek became her name.

Alex came with his name when I adopted him. He responded to it pretty well, so I didn't change it. Keaton was called Popeye at the shelter, but didn't respond at all. It went with Alex and was sorta cute.

"Robin Goodfellow" (turns out "he's" a she...oh well). Miro comes from Juan Miro, the abstract painter who did many black and white compositions. Oberon was king of the fairies in "A Midsummer night's dream", while Puck was his impish servant. It's amazing how many people I've met who claim to have never even heard of the play, let alone the names!

and Charlie for the miniature German Sheppard / mutt / Heinz57 dog.

Named after Shakespearean characters from "The Tempest" and "The Taming of The Shrew".

My friend, who gave her to me, named her. But I just call her Legend.

Abbott is named after Abbie Hoffman (I usually call my cat Abbie - but I introduce him as Abbott so folks know he's a boy).

My cat is named Evita not so much after Evita the person, but the fact that Evita the Musical is my favorite.

My elder cat (17) is named Zombie because she looks like a Halloween cat, all black with very round bright green eyes. My middle cat (8) is named Cassanova because he's such a lover boy. And my youngest cat (6) is named Thrawn, after Grand Admiral Thrawn from the Zahn star wars (Thrawn Trilogy) just because i really liked that character.

Let me start the List:
Cats:
KitKat--Black Shorthair Age: 10
Cocoa--Brown Tortoiseshell Shorthair Age: 10
Snickers--Brown Tortioseshell Longhair Age: 1
Zero--White and Gray Shorthair Age:1.5
Anybody seeing a theme here :) Chocolate Maniacs Unite!

Snicker's Kittens that we kept:
Reeses--Light Brown Tortoiseshell Longhair Age: 4 Months
Only Cat not named for Chocolate: Sylvester Guess why he is named that?

We also have a Dog named Lucy who is 8 years old, we used to have her b/f but he died last summer at the age of 16.

My Sister and her Fiance also have a Parakeet, 2 Ferrets, a Guinea Pig, and a shitload of fish. I don't remember all their names off-hand, but I do call the Parakeet Tweety, to match with Sylvester. I live in a ZOO!!!

Before we had these animals, we had two previous cats, Dino and Baby. Baby was a monster who was HUGE, couldn't think of a name at the time. Both were grey tabbies and Dino was a sweet cat but Baby, a stray we took in, turned feral. We learned a lesson there.