How did your pets get their names?

[.Brianna.]

I feel like people are always telling me that my kittens have unusual names and tend to question how I came up with my pet names/what inspired them. I'm rather particular when naming pets and sometimes it takes me a while to come up with a name that "fits". I also tend to avoid "traditional" pet names.

 

Right now I have a little boy and a little girl:

Finch (who borrows his name from the surname of the main characters in To Kill a Mockingbird - one of my favorite books) and Dinah (Alice's cat in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - another favorite).

 

I was just wondering how your pets got their names/what inspired them? (If you want to explain your neopet names as well go for it!)

[leverhelven]

OMG, I just LOVE To Kill a Mockingbird. It's just frustrating that I have no one to talk to about it, because here in Brazil it's not a known book at all...

 

Anyways, my cat's name is Emily. That's because one day, when me and my best friend were 10 years old, she found a kitty on the streets and brought her home. She named her Emily and, since her father spent most of the day away and they lived in a big house, she managed to keep the kitty a secret for a few weeks. However, when her father found out, he made her give Emily away... :(

 

She never managed to get another kitty (though she has a dog now), so I decided to make a small homage to her and the kitty she wanted so much by naming my cat Emily. :) My friend is kind of Emily's "godmother" now :laughingsmiley:

[Shelley]

Finch and Dinah...how adorable!! those are the cutest names <3 and I love their inspiration

 

I have two cats currently. One named Thomas because I got him when I was 4 and my parents named him Matisse (after the artist) and I couldn't remember it XD and the other is a recent rescue I named Cricket (because I saw it on on online list of cute names for black cats and liked it- lol so creative!)

 

I also had a fish for 4 years that recently died named Kevin...after Kevin from the office

 

lol when I worked at a vets office for a number of years I would see the weirdest names...I remember a golden retriever named "juice box"

[cartoon_dreamer]

I have 3 kitties.

 

Inspector Gadget (Usually just called The Inspector or Gadget) received his name when he managed to climb on top of my 7 foot high book shelf (an impossible feat) at 3 months old. For months before that, I only referred to him as "Big One."

 

Fizzgig received her name shortly after and is named after a creature in The Dark Crystal. She's rather mouthy and mews a lot even though she's the tiniest cutest kitty ever. Before that, she was "Little One" for the first 3 months of her life.

 

My boyfriend named our third cat, The Commodore after a character in Boardwalk Empire.

[Novelista]

Oh, gosh...I hate names like "Fluffy", "Boots" and "Fido". If they're members of your family, give them real names!

 

(By the by...Shelley got a like for how funny "Juice Box" is.)

 

===

 

My first cat was Abby. I don't know how I came up with it...I was just really certain I wanted to get a female cat and name her Abby. (That was before Abby joined the Babysitter's Club books, so it wasn't that.)

 

Rhiannon...there was a girl in my cabin at karate camp with that name, and that's also the name of the Welsh goddess of change. (Or the moon, in some lore.) It drove me nuts that some people called her "Rhianna"...and that was even before "Rihanna" became a popular singer! (My mom called her "Scooter" because she didn't like the name Rhiannon...that was even worse!)

 

I wanted to adopt a black cat and name her Morgan. Instead, a grey tabby adopted me--and Morgan didn't fit--so I named her Lauren, because that was my default name for my female novel characters at the time. (Morgan became her middle name.)

[xrazydiamond]

I have a Corgi, who I had for a week before I figured out her name. I wanted something short - one or two syllables, easy to call out, and something that fit her personality. I ended up choosing "Nova" because I thought it was pretty and she is literally an explosion of energy that consumes all in its path. So... yeah, that explains how I name my Neopets, too, because it's after her.

And since I can't resist sharing a picture, this is Nova when I catch her suspiciously digging in the sofa:

[Pascalla]

I just have a turtle right now. Her name is Turt because we couldn't think of a name-- some people in the family called her Stripes, dunno why. I changed her name to Tetra, then Toli, and yet I still call her Turt. The unoriginal name can't be undone. Whoops. :C

[caleew]

N'aw :) Erm, my hamster is called Sashma (Saschma) which is turkish for silly - my other half is Turkish Cypriot so I wanted to name her something turkish :) and we went for silly because all she ever does is fall off things and bumbles about ^_^ our bearded dragon is called George because of both Saint George who slayed the dragon and George and the Dragon :D

Erm, my cat is called Amy because it was the name of my favourite cousin, and also my favourite girls name :)

[Novelista]

I thought it was best if we didn't hijack this thread for our neopets (despite the reassurance from our lovely OP), so I posted a separate thread here.

 

(P.S.: I really like the name Sashma! Creative!)

[Eighmy_Black]

I have a Cat named Sir Captain FluffyButt, how he got this name? Well I found him a few years back on a thanksgiving during a pretty big cold spell, he was a stray that was abandoned my his mom at about 6 weeks old. I did not intend to get a cat but I couldn't leave him there to freeze in 3 feet of snow. I had him for several days before coming up with a name and I went with Fluffybutt because that's what I'd been calling him since I found him just to have something other then cat to call him and figured I might as well since he was already answering to it. I added Sir Captain because everything sounds way better with cool titles.

 

I feel like I have probably the most immature pet name ever, doubley so since I was over 20 when I got him lol

[.Brianna.]

I have a Cat named Sir Captain FluffyButt,

 

haha ironically Fluffy Butt is what we call Dinah sometimes. She was a little puff ball when we first got her and it just kinda stuck...it happens.

[emily_speck_15]

I have a dog named Snickers, because when she was young she was all the colors of a Snickers bar. My other dog is named Frodo, after LotR.... Yes, we are that family!!

[nousha]

Well, my first cat was named Rhea after the Greek goddess, the mother of Zeus. I don't have her anymore :(

Now I have two cats, the older one is Stella but is named so because as a kitten she was so fast when running, that we thought of her as a stealth aircraft :)

The second one was one of three saved by my brother in the mountains, he went for a walk and returned with three small abandoned kittens. The other two found new owners but this one stayed so I decided to keep her. She's simply called The Small One :)

 

I also have a dog, a lovely Irish Setter, turning 11 next month. She's Dara, short for Darling - I wanted something short with "r" in the name so I read the name in a list of dog names and liked it a lot.

 

I had another dog, another Irish Setter who just died two days ago. She was rescued from the street and I took her home 1 1/2 years ago. She was already old with some problems - almost blind, almost deaf, with tumor on one mammal gland. The people who found her mistook her for a boy and as they had had a male Irish Setter called Freddie, they named her Freddie too. Later we realized she's a girl but I decided to keep the name :)

She died in Friday after a case of Gastric Dilаtation and Volvulus. The vets managed to help her without a surgery but she had to be anesthetized nevertheless. They called me to take her home and while I was waiting in the vet clinic for them to bring her to me, the vet came out and told me her heart stopped. That was so unexpected! But she was at least 12-13 years old and maybe her heart wasn't able to bear it all. We miss her very much, she was a lovely dog :(

[WhiteWolf]

I have a sweet little Westie named Dana. Dana was named after Dana Scully on the show "X-Files". She was the runt of the litter, and latched onto me the moment we met. Kind of a "Meant to be" thing.

[Spritzie]

I have a tabby cat named Cairo. (Though I'm not sure anyone knows that's his name since pretty much everyone in my family has insisted on using their own nicknames for him since he was a kitten.)

 

My family seemed to have a city theme going (My sister's cat is Rio, after Rio de Janeiro.) I had planned on picking an Alaskan city name since Alaska is special to my family. I was considering Kodiak, since he would sit up like a little bear, but he was 3 lbs, so it was hard to name him the same as a bear. (And city) Randomly the idea of Cairo just popped into my head and I loved it. I've always loved Egypt and Egyptian culture, so it seemed like a good fit.

[agrinwithoutacat]

I don't have any really good stories for my pet names, they just kind of came to be.

My dog is Molly (nicknamed Moose, or Molly-Moo), because it just seemed to fit her. I liked the alliteration with Molly Moose, and we thought she'd be bigger than she is so it seemed fitting to name her after a large animal.

My bearded dragon is Ichabod, because I was into Sleepy Hollow at the time. I thought about naming him Fluffy, but decided against it because it's not very original.

My mice are Pinky (a white mouse, named after Pinky and the Brain), Tuffy (Jerry's cousin, from Tom and Jerry, who is also known as Nibbles), Tux (black and white, looks like she's wearing a tuxedo) and Robin (no real reason that I can remember).

Then there's the chickens, only a few of which have names yet. I can't really tell them apart anyway, except for Daryl, the runt with the crooked leg, and La Jefa (was El Jefe before we found out she's a girl), who is the biggest of them all. We need to get the little colored bands you put on their leg so we can mark them and tell them apart easier.

[officialsarahjay]

I have a cat named Ozzie, but her full name is Dame Oswald Featherbottom the Third.

 

I found her under a truck as a tiny kitten, and she immediately bonded to me. She's been my constant companion for about 5 years now. But when I found her, I wasn't sure what I wanted to name her. So I gave the honor to my mom.

 

Here's some back story: Ozzie is a Maine Coon mix, and I had assumed she was a male. For about 5 years. Just this year I discovered she's possibly female (possibly because my vet can't confirm if she's male or female, and he's said he's never seen a cat like this before). So when I thought Ozzie was hands down a male, I asked what my Mom would call her and she said, "Oswald." I said, "Cool, why Oswald?" and my Mom shrugged and said, "I don't know, I just wanted to name the cat after Lee Harvey Oswald".

 

Really.

 

So Oswald is her name, but she needed something more...regal, as she's all white and soft as snow. So I called her Sir Oswald Featherbottom the Third. And then when I discovered he may be a she, I changed the Sir to Dame and it works.

 

Are you still following? This is confusing.

 

But I read that cats love the "eee" sound, so I call her Ozzie instead of Oswald.

[cartoon_dreamer]

I have a sweet little Westie named Dana. Dana was named after Dana Scully on the show "X-Files". She was the runt of the litter, and latched onto me the moment we met. Kind of a "Meant to be" thing.

That's my name in real life. Somewhere out there someone is yelling my name at a furry little white thing in the backyard. :P

[beruichi]

We currently have two dogs, Buster and Pyrrah. We got Buster as a gift from my sister's friend, so I'm not really sure what his breed is (my friends say he's probably a border collie), but he's definitely mixed. I'm responsible for the name, because nobody else couldn't think of a name. I was at a Mythbusters phase back then, so named him after Buster, the show's crash test dummy. Not that we're using our pet for the same capacity or anything. (:

 

Pyrrah is another gift from a different friend of my sister's. She's a purebred dachshund, and she has this certificate to prove the authenticity of her breed or something, so when we got her, the name's already there. I'd like to think her name is derived from "pyro", because she's one fiery little hotdog. :p

 

I picked up a stray kitten several months back. It was a grey tabby cat, and I named it Noona, which means "older woman/sister" in Korean. IDK why I named her that, I'm not even really into k-pop. Sadly, I lost her not even a month into taking her in due to a flash flood in our area.

[010_pipsy_010]

We currently have one cat called Pumpkin, (he's Ginger!). He's 16 years old and now answers to 'cloth ears', 'ginger' and a few other random names too. lol

 

Pumpkin's sister, Hazel passed away a few years ago. I'm not sure why we called her Hazel, but her nickname and most common name was Squeaky Pie or Squeaker because that was the noise she made when she miaowed. :)

[Aubree8584]

My cat's name was orignally Holden, for Holden Caulfield in the book Catcher in the Rye, but it was too close to my boyfriends cat name, Odin. Soo I chose Jack because of the Nightmare Before Christmas movie.

 

I also have 2 dogs, Daisy & Stewart. I wanted Daisy to have a flower name and Stewart... just kind of came to me lol

 

But before I had a cat name Max, and that was after Goofy's son

[Mariposa]

Mr. Pibb - When we got him as a kitten, he was extremely hyperactive all the time: running, sliding, jumping out from behind door frames, attacking feet, climbing furniture that shouldn't be climbed... so we wanted to name him something related to caffeine. We considered Mr. Coffee and Dr. Pepper, before deciding on Mr. Pibb, after the caffeinated soft drink of the same name.

 

Leo and Max - These were the names I gave to my two degu brothers. I named them after the main characters in Mel Brooks' The Producers.

[maypls]

I have two cats, Freddie and Genie. I named Freddie right before my junior year marching band season with the show being the music of Queen, so he's named after Freddie Mercury. We got Genie in January this year and I wanted her name to coordinate somehow, so I based hers off of another famous rock band frontman, Gene Simmons of KISS.

 

I read somewhere a while ago that cats respond better to names ending in an "ee" sound too so that's coincidentally beneficial :)

[bradsmaroo]

I read somewhere a while ago that cats respond better to names ending in an "ee" sound too so that's coincidentally beneficial :)

 

I have heard of this as well.

I have a dog named Bradley. He came with it when I adopted him from the pound. People always ask "WHERE DID YOU COME UP WITH THAT??" I rather like it, kind of different, and I like pets with human names. Starting a goat farm soon, number one goal is to name at least 1 buck and 1 doe Harold and Gladys (respectively) to make a cute couple.

 

By the way, Brianna, I think those are cool and thoughtful names that you chose. I heart Atticus Finch as well.

[eliang100]

I have two cats, Freddie and Genie. I named Freddie right before my junior year marching band season with the show being the music of Queen, so he's named after Freddie Mercury. We got Genie in January this year and I wanted her name to coordinate somehow, so I based hers off of another famous rock band frontman, Gene Simmons of KISS.

 

I read somewhere a while ago that cats respond better to names ending in an "ee" sound too so that's coincidentally beneficial :)

 

Apparently it helps if there is any long vowel sound, like an "oo" or an "aa".

 

I did not personally name him, but I once took care of a guinea pig name Black Jellybean, simply because he was all black and still quite a little piggie. The original owners shortened it to BJ. I remember it distinctly because it was right around the time when kids were snickering over pretty trivial things and my brother and his friends were super immature about it.