Giving names to animals---Should you use human names or not?

I'm not really a fan of giving animals obviously human names ("Charlie," "Emma," etc.), although names that have cultural connections are sweet (I would name a dog/cat "Miles," say, or "Monk," or "Diz"). In general I'm for giving animals relatively fitting names, not particularly human ones, since human-named animals often strike me as posing or fake--they're not humans, so why do they have human names? Human names to me are also relatively boring--if I could be named "Gingerbread," dude, I'd go for it. :D

And a mouse called Hercules, so I guess I don't agree with you!

Charles, Alice, Leonard, Milo, Teddy, Woody and Jeoffry. The only exceptions were Tulip, Spot and my new kitten, Pixie. I gave them names that seemed to fit, and the cats never seemed to care much.

He just is.

And I've had this argument recently. He always brings up that I was wrong to change my kitten's name. The shelter had named her Fancy Pants. I changed it to Maya. My pets are more to me than just animals, they are family so I give them real names. Emma, Ben, Duke (ok that one is a "pet" name) and Maya.

insulted!(not really).

:-)

Hubby rescued her from certain and imminent death. We named her Gloria for Ms. Gaynor of "I will survive" fame.
The kitty who traveled across country in a suitcase last month was named "Gracie May" which I thought was totally charming.

Used to flip people out....

And the other Smokie. I just love the name Sophie and since I prolly won't ever have children...And since she's gray and looks like her sister Smokie was a good sister name,I think.

my pet's names have been :
Caspian
Kimosabe
Flame
Spark
Myrriah

:hi:

PC? naw

:blush:

Other dog's name is Trina. I found out years later that my daughter named her after a rapper chick that cusses worse than I do.

:hi:

The Cat's name is prissy.. and the Dog's name is Bear (ALthough I usually call him The Commie Dog)

It's a personal choice. I don't have a problem with it. But then again that might just be because I've seen some zany names for animals . .

Oh and I've met more beagels named Bob than anything else.

:) Fred the Dachsund (childhood pet), Kimmy the Cat (childhood pet), Tiny Tim the Squirrel (fell out of a tree when I was six and his mother wouldn't take him back, so we adopted him), Abby the Dog (got her right after college graduation), Taffy the Dog (got her when Abby died), Diana the Dog (got her right after I got married), Kara the Dog (got her as a companion for Diana), and my current doggies, Casey the Dog and Vicki the Dog. :)

But I had a dog named Gypsy and a cat named Sucker. But then again I had a cat named Jackie and one named McMillan (heard it in a hockey game when I was in fifth grade and thought it would make a cool name.)

Haruka loves birds. We can't have any, because of her cat.

The boys want a cat but I get to tell them they can't have one because of the birds. I'm NOT a cat person.

Her cats, at the time, apparently got along fine with them. I've seen pictures of the parakeets riding the cat. She now has the great white hunter, so there will definitely be no birds.

How can you not be a cat person? I don't know if we can be friends now.

:cry:

Dander allergy. I have a physiological excuse.

I choose to just suffer. Remember the big Himalyan looking cat at her mom's house? He's a Ragdoll, a hypoallergenic breed.

But her boyfriend wasn't keen on it despite the awesome song reference inherent in the name. They named it Frankenstein instead.

Ridiculous names for pets are fun.

Back in the 80's, I had a cat named Dave. She didn't care what her name was. Long as I fed her and paid attention to her when she wanted, it was all good.

Mick got his name, because Haruka's dad's nickname was "The Mick," as in the slur for Irish people. He's a border collie though, and they traditionally have one-syllable human names.

CATS:
Astra Luna, Simba, Electra, Renoir, Sateeva, Tasha (she belonged to a friend Searte, so we didn't name her), Kilala, Inuyasha, Kagome, Sango.
The last four names are from an anime series.

DOGS:
Katonga Girlie (she also belonged to my friend mentioned above and didn't name her) Searte also had another dog when he lived with us who was named Nektar after a band. Poor Nektar was involved in a dog fight and died from it:cry:

GOATS:
Casper, Poppy

So, as of now I have 5 cats, 0 dogs, 2 goats.

two syllable names are best.

Now cats... they just do best with any name that have a staccato sound. Chirpy sounding names are better than the growling (Oowww) sounding names.

His 'real' name is Minou. But he also goes by (depending on my mood):

Scheisskopf
El Cabron del noche
Fuckface O'Clockwork
Rambo
UncleX
Buddy

What about humans with pet names?

Logan and Sybil were named by my boyfriend.

I give names that are fitting according to my sense of their place in my life. My dear friend Petey, aka Pete when he was being a little shit, was named after "Ol' Pete," the nickname of a Civil War general I've studied a great deal. He'd been discarded by more than one family when he found me, was misunderstood it seemed because he had an odd personality, but having him with me essentially saved my own life during a trying period, much the same as my study of "Ol' Pete" had done something similar years before.

My current roommate is named Franky. He has brilliant blue eyes, can be a cranky cuss but can turn on the charm when he wants to, and so is named after Old Blue Eyes, i.e. Frank Sinatra. I also think, but am not sure, he has ties to the mafia.

Riley: not named after anything/anybody, I just liked the name

Spencer: named after John Spencer (Leo, West Wing), not long after he died

Kyra: named after Kyra Sedgewick because I wanted to name her after Kyra's character in The Closer, but Brenda Leigh is a really shitty cat name.

All 3 are cats.

one of the kittehs is named pearl because she really is the most perfect cat (well, now she's 'almost perfect' pearl since she lost an incisor after being hit by a car).

and the big guy is named yossarian...i don't remember why, but it fits him

the other two are sweetie (yes, original, isn't it) and vega

In the past my dogs names were Rob, Rickie and Phil.
(besides for about 7 more and one cat).

Nothing better than someone who thought their kid's name was one-of-a-kind finding out that it's also the name of the next-door neighbor's family dog.

they were brother and sister. (about twenty years ago i had two cats that i actually named brother and sister. ok, so i'm not that great with names.)

bob and betty were my children. equal partners in my life. my world revolved around them.

bob died first, that left betty queen of the house. my world then revolved around her, until april
of 06.

they were always family, and i NEVER called them "kitty". they were everything.

i have been in serious cat withdrawal ever since. as soon as i move, in april, i'm immediately
getting at least three, so they will always have one another, and not just me.

and they will have real names.

but that is just me.... :shrug:

and our well-loved poochie friend now is Moby (because he's such a...well, you probably get it.)

LittleBird is LittleBird.

I do sort of enjoy naming animals with people names, if it suits them.

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

One of my cats is named Millie, which was my grandmothers nickname when she was a kid. The other two are don't have human names. They're named Silver and Gray.

Name an animal whatever you feel comfortable calling that animal. All the better if the animal will answer to it. :shrug:

Very few pet names are as bad as some of the names people give their kids.

Just ask my dog and cat: Moon Unit and Dweazel. :evilgrin:





I keed, I keed. Their names are actually Smudge and Chloe. Smudge, because I was smudging my house one Halloween when she showed up on my doorstep, and Chloe because I'm dyslexic: the animal shelter actually named her Cleo, and I copied it wrong.

:7


I like Cloe better than Cleo, so I think your cat benefitted from a fortunate mistake. :)

:hi:

Our cats are:

Daisy
Murton
Woody

and to strip that power from animals is as bad as thinking that one can own an animal.

And also, who's to say what is a human name and what is not? We have lost the sense in English of names having meaning - and, when someone names someone with a name that has obvious meaning, such as "Moon" or "Sun" or "Aurora", we laugh at them with derisive laughter - but the vast majority of names, except some of the new abominations totally made up bullshit names like "Kasheequa" and "Bronkaka" and "Jarmalane" and shit, have meanings that in the original language are as obvious as naming your kid "Beloved" (David) or "King" (Leroy) or "Red" (Esau) or "Moon" (Luna, e.g.).

The first two were named Sam and Frodo after fictional characters. The third was named Frank, after Frank Sinatra. The last was named Roadkill, because I found it nearly dead from dehydration in the middle of a Wal-Mart parking lot.

that would be cool because it would just be so fucking weird to give them swim team-like names

I had some names for a cat when I decided to adopt one. When I found the one I wanted, the name Oliver came to me. I hadn't thought of it before meeting him but somehow he struck me as an Oliver.

Our animals right now:

Two female rats: Roxy and Spot. Spot because she has a small white spot on her head. Theyr are mother and daughter.

Male hairless rat: Jack. He came from the pet store with that name.

Two guinea pigs: Both males named Sweetpea and Zorro. Zorro got his name because of the mask marking on his face. Sweetpea because I couldn't think of a name at the time.

Two cockatiels, both male: Maximillian (Max) and Spike. Spike got his name because his crest feathers look like spikes.

We just acquired a male pekingese named Fifty. He was named after 50 cent, the rapper. He also likes to chase the guinea pigs around. To Fifty, they're like mobile squeaky toys.

He has about 1000 nicknames of course. And he no longer has blue eyes. But Frank he remains.