Where Does Your Pet's Name Come From?

[msteddom]

My puppy Jake originally belonged to our neighbors and that's what they named him. Giving him a new name didn't even seem like an option. It felt like it would be telling a small child that he was getting a new name. Why confuse him any further? A new home had to be strange enough for him. I think the name Jake really suits him though. It's playful and mischevious, yet completely endearing all at once.



Melissa

 

[Kteacher]

our cat is oficially named el duque after former Yankee Orlando Hernandez. When Hernandez got traded we started calling the cat devil boy because that's what he is

 

[circus slim]

Bill The Dog was abandoned at the Salvation Army when I worked there. He was a wreck and still has issues from his previous life. We named him William Booth after the founder of the army. That quickly became Bill.

Butterscotch is our older cat. He's an orange tabby and just reminded us of the color of butterscotch.

Leon is our new cat. My daughter originally named him Lilly, thinking it was a female. She was put on the spot at the vet's during Lilly's first checkup and, somehow, came up with Leon!

 

[dianeschlicht]

LOL, Bernie! A sex change kitty!

We have MANY dogs, and each has a story behind how they got their names. Some of the current ones aren't as interesting as some in the past.

We once had two males named Simon and Schuster. We currently have two littermates named George and Gracie. We have had a Maya for Maya Angelou, and a Bertha because she was the biggest in the litter. We also like to link names to their registered names sometimes. We had Mickey whose Reg. name was Ch. D'Aire Mickey Mouth. We also have a female named Agnes whose reg. name is Ch. D'Aire Agnes Day (play on agnius dei). We have two that were born around the turn of the new century. One is named Viva for Ch. D'Aire Viva Why Two Kay. Her brother is just called Beans for Mr. Bean, but his reg. name is D'Aire Turn of the Century. We like to think of unusual reg. names for our show dogs, so we often spend a lot of time on that. I must say, this thread is giving me some new ideas for call names though.

Our biggest winner was a dog who "marked" himself at the moment of his birth. As I was drying him off, I commented on how dark he was (these are all Airedales). He was so black, you really couldn't see that he had any tan on him. When I turned him over, he had a tiny white "x" on his chest, so I named him "Malcolm". The first of his son's to be shown was named Ch. D'Aire Apparent. A play on our kennel name and the fact that he was to be the "heir" to his father's throne. It didn't happen though!

 

[Kimberle]

We have 2 cats.

Our oldest, is named Taxus. My dh found him under a taxus plant when he was little.

Our other is Tiger. He's a main coon & was abt 6 months when we got him. He just sort of lookes like a little "tiger".

 

[Diane]

Misty – because she’s gray, like mist

Otis – after the character on the Andy Griffith Show

BTW, they're both cats and they look alike.

 

[LadyAurora]

The boyfriend who gave Snoopy to me as a kitten was a big Snoopy fan. Thus the name.
My parents named their dog "Chewbacca" because he is VERY hairy (golden retriever).

 

[FOJMO]

Two cats --

REN - From Ren & Stimpy (Nickelodeon cartoon). We had a Stimpy, but she had to be putto sleep (lung cancer).

CINDER - From Cinderella, but a BOY -- Cinderfella (also a Jerry Lewis movie), plus he's smoky gray and looks like a cinder from the fireplace.

A short, cute story -- there was a little kitten the other day in our local paper who got stuck some PVC pipe behind a shopping center and was rescued. They named it PIPER! Cute, huh?

 

[Kim&Chris]

In my home, just two cats: Simba and Nala. Simba was found in a trash can (in a paper bag) by my neice, and Nala was a pound kitty, rescued on the day she was due to be euthanized. She is the sweetest, gentlest cat!

My mom has two huge dogs, named Lady and Tramp. Tramp was a severly abused dog, who now has the life of a king! Mom also has a Lhasa named Gus (the mouse from Cinderella).

 

[Feralpeg]

Our current pets are:

Salem (black cat) - we named her that before Sabrina the Teenage Witch came along

Ginger (yellow tabby cat)

Scout (golden retriever) - named after Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird

Griffin (golden retriever) - named after the mythical lion/eagle combo

Pets gone but not forgotten:

Mystery (beautiful black cat)

Chessie (white and gold cat) - named after the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland

Baron (german sheppard/lab mix) - good German sounding title

Dodger (border collie/st. bernard mix) - named after the Artful Doger from Oliver

Zippy and Doodah (parakeets) - named after the song

 

[trishy]

Fun thread!

Well, Norman (black and white smooth fox terrier) came from the calf on City Slickers

Sidney (blue Australian cattle dog) came from of course Australia

Savannah (yellow lab) came with the name when we got her

 

[depplyinluv]

I once had a parakeet that was named petey after the parakeet in dumb and dumber, the one that gets its head cut off and they tape it back on and sell it to the blind kid....

 

[tnkrbell]

Our dog is Zero we got the name from Nightmare before x-mas!!
And our cat is Princess after me!! lol

 

[luv2nascar]

Our beloved Winston Churchill (9 yr old Boston Terrier) passed away in April. We was so aptly named because he had such a grumpy face if only a cigar was hanging from those lips. I still miss him every day very deeply. He was the best companion I will ever have. We also called him Winnie.

We have an orange tabby cat named Thomas as in Thomas O'Malley from the Aristocats. Everybody Everybody Everybody wants to be a cat

Our new puppy (5 month old Boston Terrier) is Sir Jacob Churchill
middlename is in honor of Winston. Jacob just fit him and goes well with Churchill.

 

[WDW Poly Princess]

My cats are-

Tallulah- after a character in a book and a song name, and I just liked it.

Tiger Lily- When she was born, Tiger came to mind immediatly. Then we found out she was a girl, so I added Lily on to make it more feminine Tiger Lily is, of course, from Peter Pan. Her nickname is "Miss Kitty Fantastica", after Tara & Willow's kitten in season 4 of Buffy.

Pippin- from Lord of the Rings. He's my fat little hobbit kitten.

Trinity- after Trinity from the Matrix. Thought he was a girl at first, thus the name, and by the time we figured out he was a boy, it had just stuck! I sometimes call him Merry though, to go with Pippin, because he and his brother are always together.

 

[DizzieDizney]

We have a Boston Terrier. His name is C. Biskit Spaz

C.Biskit for the movie "SeaBiscuit" because the movie came out this year and the dog was born this year. We spelled it w/ a C because my first name starts with a C. DH got Spaz from the movie Spawn. Spawn's dog's name was Spaz in the movie and the dog is overly hyper and it looks like he spaz'es out. LOL

We call the dog Biskit but his tags have his full name

 

[arminnie]

Sundance
A beautiful blond cocker spaniel that I got a month after my first trip to WDW in 1980. My sister named him Sundance as he was as cute as Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Gone but not forgotten.

Cody
Cody is also a blond cocker spaniel. I got him when he was a year old from the Cocker Spaniel Rescue of Northern California. He had originally been called Spike. This is the sweetest dog in the whole world and the women at the rescue told me that I could have him if I promised to change his name. It didn't take him anytime to learn his new name although he still perked up when you said "Spike" until he went deaf about a year ago. He's 11 now. I think I came up with Cody to keep the Western theme.

 

[chichihoney]

boomer is a cat wecall her thatwhen she was a kitten she jumps right back to my mom she put her down she jumps right back up like a boomerang

 

[Jockaroo]

We had the name Mac picked out for our Scottie a couple of years before we got him. And it just ended up working. He is officially Mac N. Tosh (for the Apple Macintosh computers). Usually call him my Puppy Mac.

My little girl is a rescue and came pre-named--Tipper. No, she is not named for Al Gore's wife--we hear that all the time. She officially Tipperty which we've tracked down to a small town in Scotland (makes sense for a Scottie). Her "pet" names are Tippy and Tippy-Toes. I just couldn't change her name.

-Jockaroo

 

[adamak]

My first pet : Meow-Me means cat in Chinese. Very obvious. Her original name was TC (trouble cat), but nothing like her name when I adopted her from my friend.

My 2nd cat : Tibble. It's originated from a philosophical argument... "If there is a cat named Tibble, and she consists of both the body and the tail..... if the tail is chopped off, is Tibble still 'Tibble' or is it 'Tibble minus tail'? And if so, at which point the material object Tibble = Tibble minus tail?

Don't ask me. It's from my DH. He's a master degree in philosophy. And he can talk about this for 5 hours.

My dog : Frege. German philosopher who reduces math to logic.

As you can see, Tibble & Frege will truly be beat up if they were in school. It's just too weird.