How did you come up with your pet's name?

[bballmom56]

Our St. Bernard was rescued from a shelter in KY by a local rescue group. Her name at that time was Tinkerbell. Well, the new rescue decided she was definitely not a Tinkerbell, so changed one letter to make it Tankerbell. So she came to us with that name and Tankerbell it is (Tank for short).

One of our cats is named Nukat, because he was the "new cat".

 

[blana]

We currently have 2 dogs. Chuck was named after Chuck Amato, the head football coach at NCSU at the time. Jo was named after Joe Pate, the special teams coach at NCSU at the time. DH was an equiptment manager there.

 

[Yankeemouse]

We have Sexy Sadie, our yellow lab, who was named after the Beatles' song of same name. Huge Beatles fans here! Somehow Sadie's been shortened to "Shea". There's also our three cats, all brothers, who are Boo, Gray, and Goldine (from Pokeman!)

 

[golfgal]

Our oldest cat, an Egyptian Mau is named Jefe', as in Jeff in Spanish. Why? I don't know.

Our youngest is named Keith...another one where I don't know what we were thinking.

Both of the names fit the cats now though.

Both are girls. LOL

Doesn't Jefe' in Spanish mean "friend"?

We picked our dog's name the old fashioned way, came to the DIS and asked for suggestions, picked the one we like the best. We named her Dublin.

 

[pl71]

Our dogs are Oedipus and Circe (pronounced Sir-C). My husband likes Greek Tragedies and thought it would be funny to have a name like Oedipus Rex for our dog since Rex is a traditional dog name. We only call him Oedipus though. When we got the second dog we wanted to stick with the Greek them so I picked a cute sounding name from the Odyssey, I suits her well-- she has very seductive eyes.

For my cats we decided to go with an alcohol theme. They ended up being Kahlua, Bailey, and Whiskey.

One of our parrots already had a name (Rikki). We had a hard time coming up with a good name for the other one. We wanted a name that was short, easy for the birds to learn to say, and clearly different than our current pet names. We decided to call him Echo.

I named my mom's cats too. One became Minnie, she was a tiny Siamese kitten with enourmous ears, so we named her after Minnie Mouse. She just recently died at age 21, and was really the coolest cat I've ever known, must have been that Disney name! My mom's other cats were picked up on Christmas Eve so we went with holiday names; Holly and Ginger.

 

[tinkntraining]

Our oldest cat is an orange Main Coon. We scooped him up at a shelter the moment we saw him. He's orange and fluffy and oh-so regal -- so we called him, "Sir Fluffy McDoogal from Istanbul". We call him Morris, lol.

Our middle kitty is the color of coffee with cream, so his name is Mocha.

And our baby...well, he chose me. I was in my backyard one night and this sickly, tiny little orange kitty who squeaked instead of meowed, came into our yard (the neighbor has feral cats that he feeds, but he never gets them fixed). This little kitty, with his eyes and nose all yucky, sneezing and wheezing, crawled up my pants leg and laid his head on my chest and promptly fell asleep. Well, what I could I do? I kept him, took him to the vet and that little itty bitty sickly kitty turned into huge, muscular furball who gets into trouble all the time. He is my Meeko.

 

[NMAmy]

DD's been naming our dogs since she was about 2. She named our malanois/shepherd mix Charlie like the dog in All Dogs Go to Heaven. Charlie was a girl.

She named our golden retriever Sunny because her fur looks golden like sunshine. The name fits her personality but once again, people think she's a boy because they hear "Sonny."

 

[npmommie]

our dogs

Petey our beagle came from the rescue with the name.
Bailey,....... I just liked the name
Ginger.... cuz she was the color of the spice ginger
Riley.... I was watching one of those home repair shows, the one with Bob Villa and his carpenter was "riley" i just liked the name again
Girlfriend.......hubby named her, she was stray, and he would feed her outside every morning he would call her saying "where's my girlfriend" LOL the name just stuck when we brought her inside

our cats,
Lovebug..........just cuz she was a lovebug
Tubby........got him from the shelter and he was chubby LOL

Sophie and Sylvia the kids named these cats

 

[nmmom95]

We've had 2 dogs. The first was a lab/shepherd mix. She was coffee colored, so we named her Bailey, for Irish coffee.
Now, we have a black & white shih tzu. My mom came up with the name Oreo. My younger DS was not quite 2 when we got him and had trouble pronouncing Oreo and called him E-I-O. He still comes to that. LOL

 

[charming23]

Cleo came with ther name from the adoption agency we got her from, which worked out well because my mom really wanted to name our next cat Cleo.

Caly, (short for Calypso) came with the name Baby from the agency and I could not stomach calling her that. So I chose Calypso from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies but we usually just call her Caly. (although she pretty much comes to anything you call her as long as there is a treat bag in your hand)

 

[puffkin]

For our beagle, we really didn't have a name picked out. After we got him at the breeder we were driving home discussing names and we drove by a billboard for a local jewler called Murphy's Jewlers. Murphy fit him perfectly so that is what we went with!

With our cat, a beautiful gray female with soft green eyes, I was stumped too. We got her from foster care and couldn't take her home right away because she needed to be spayed first and wasn't quite old enough. I was trying to slip in a Disney name and thought Lilly was perfect for her after the Lilly Belle train (which in turn was named for Lillian Disney). I slipped it by my husband because I told him her eyes looked like Lily pads He figured it out on our next trip when I insisted I needed a picture of the Lilly Belle for our Lilly Belle.

Our second cat we also got through foster care. We again didn't have a name picked out. I wanted another Disney name but not too obvious. She is a dark tabby with green eyes and she is really sweet and cuddle, but a bit spazzy and nervous. DS had been watching the Replacements (Saturday morning cartoon) that morning and the song sticks in my head for hours afterword. SO I was humming that and came up with Riley. What is weird is that she responded to that name immediately. Like a dog. It was so weird. Her foster name was Wilma which we were NOT keeping but sounds nothing like Riley.

 

[AshleyW]

I have 2 cats, Skeeter and Aikman. First up is Skeeter:

He was mine and DF's first pet, so we looked through 'popular' pet names to find a good name for him. We found Scooter, and changed it to Skeeter. We almost always call him some kind of a spin-off name, though... Mo-skeeter, Skeety bug, or when DF's friends are over.. Skeet Skeet.

Second up is Aikman:

We got Aikman from a local shelter when he was a kitty. They named him Bootstrap Bill. We weren't real fond of that name, so I let DF name him.. enough said. He's the sweetest, most cuddly cat I've ever seen.. not exactly the type of cat that should be named after a Dallas Cowboy.

 

[Sgt Mickey]

When we got Bailey we tried for about a week to come up with a name. I think we may have looked at dogs name but a friend suggested it so it stuck.

Guido well I'm italian. And the day before we got him I was watching that DOG 101 show and two guys had their dog Guido and I thought it was a cute name. SO the next day we got him spare of the monent thing. We have wanted a chocoate lab forever and there was one in the paper. I saw him and said he is a Guido

 

[Sugardimples]

Our black cat is named Olive.

Our wonderful dog is Ellen Rose, named for Ellen DeGeneres and my godmother Rose.

 

[Jennasis]

Our labx mutt is named Milhouse, after Bart's bff on the Simpsons.

Our Greyhound is named Janky, after the nickname of DH's favorite musician, Jandek.

Our Blue tick coonhound is Lilly Belle, after Walt Disney's wife who has a train at DL named for her.

Our first Quarter Horse is named Phantom, because he has a white "mask" on his face that looks like a PotO mask.

Our second Quarter Horse is Monty, after Mr. Burns on the Simpsons.

Our THIRD Quarter Horse is Buddy and he came with that name.

Our Belgian Draft Horse is Homer, after...The Simpsons again!

Our Thoroughbred is Neil, named for singer Neil Sedaka. He came with that name.

Our two barn cats are Itchy and Scratchy named for the cartoon cat and mouse on the Simpsons.

 

[alexensmom]

We've had some odd names for our family pets. My dad named the first dog and cats. Bo-Jo the dog ,George K. Cat (like kitty cat), and Alley (for alley cat) He took alot of pride in those names.
Other strange names in our house were Checkers, Mrs. T, Mr. Higgins or Higgy Baby (from Magnum PI ), Pete, and Sylvester.
My husband and I werent much better at coming up with names. Ketchup and Duncan for our rescue dogs (we were alittle fixated on favorite foods ). Then came T-i-double guh-er our dalmatian. He lived up to his name. He was hyper!!!
We came up with our last dog's name when we were looking at english bulldogs one day. We were shocked at the price...$3000! We both said thats like buying a Harley. And at the same time we said that would be a great name for a dog! So a year later we rescued Harley, the sweetest girl. Part german shepherd and sharp as a tack. She has been gone for about two years now and I cant look at a Harley without thinking of our wonderful girl

 

[ZephyrHawk]

My pets are always named for characters from books. Currently, I have one cat: Meryl. Her full name is Meryl "Deringer Meryl" Strife, and she's technically named for an anime/manga character who has black hair, wears primarily white clothing and never shuts up. As you might guess, our little black and white kitty never stops "talking".

Although they're gone now, we used to have two ferrets. The white one was Pantalaimon, the grey was Gandalf.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Great thread, but it would be better with pictures - like Ashley's.

We name our dogs with three names - first is their own, second is the name of the "previous" dog with an apostrophe and third is a word that means Kinship. We came up with it as a way of dealing with loss of one dog and introduction of another: it carries on the spirit of the last dog and makes us all feel connected, etc.

 

[DreamDelta]

Our yellow Lab's name is Nala. When we got her 8 months ago we wanted to give her a Disney-ish name. My DS wanted to name her, hence the name Nala. It really suits her too!

 

[tazdev3225]

I have had quite a few pets in my life. My first cat as an adult was Guenevere and my hamster was Lancelot. Guen had a litter of kittens before I could get her spayed and I kept the only 2 that survived. They were Romeo and Juliet. I was a Medieval English major.

When I got married I bought my DH a puppy from 2 girls at the supermarket. We named her Snowflake but called her Flaky and she was. I have had a cat named Shamu the Killer Cat after the whale in Seaworld and that fit also. he was a great mouser.

My dog now is Nikki because I wanted a little lapdog and thought that was the perfect name. My DS assured me she would be little. She is a 60 lb boxer/shepherd mix. My corgi/shepherd was Takoda or Cody for short. It meant little bear in one of the Indian languages. My cats are Simba (Nala passed away) named by my DGS, Tips named by DH because the Tip of his tongue sticks out. Tips had a sister named Gray Cat Soon To Be Dead, she would try and steal my food so I always said "Gray cat you're going to be dead soon". It became her name. Sadly she is gone now too.