What's in a Name?

Sowilu

Its not as bad as the dog my uncle knew (in Mexico) who's owner named him "Tumbalo" which translated to english it means "Knock it down" or one guy, to be funny, named his dog "Como tu" meaning "Like you". So when a person asked "what's your dog's name?" they would respond "like you". That is weird.

my boss had a red doberman named Too .. because when his bitch  had pups he wanted to keep one. his wife demanded to know why and he said "Cause i want too!" .. so he registered the dog as that "I Want Too", but nicknamed him Too-too.. what a name for a Dobie! Too-Too!!??

anyway i'm indifferent about names as long as it represents the personality. i wont criticize anyones choice in names, but i do roll my eyes at the most common names.. max, buddy, maggie(even though my mom and i named her collie Maggie.. but that was the song on the radio when we brought her home), and many other "common" names. George was Ben's original name.. and there are soooooooo many bulldogs named George its not even funny!!

We've recently been offered a dog - the one living nextdoor in fact - he has no name, but everyone collectively calls him Smokey because thats how he looks.. and acts.. trying to catch him is like trying to catch smoke. he's very fast and evasive like a typical feral/abused dog.

When i got Kaydee i had every intention of giving her a "Female/Masculine" name.. something like Xena, or Stella, but my husband liked none of those.. so i said "Fine call her D.D... " he loved it... i was joking.. i told him i was joking.. told him DD stood for Dumpster Dog, or .. DUM DOG!!(yes thats where i got my forum name) so he decided on K.D.... then changed the spelling to Kaydee... i never had to work so hard for a dog's name in my life!!! i never had to worry about input on a name until i got married!! everyone of my pets in the past had historical names, or names with emotion or character behind them... Sir John Franklin(lost british explorer - when we brought Franky home it was the same date that Franklin was last seen looking for the Northwest Passage), Brigadier General William O. Darby(i'm big into WWII history and i always liked General Darby's character), Farron(this pup was born the same day Farron Young shot himself) Quila(Tequila cause he had a sharp bite to him!), Amber(Gaelic for Fierce) Trooper(because he was!), the list goes on... even my smaller pets had unique names... had a mouse named Bullet because when she escaped the would shoot out of your hands like a bullet.. her companion mouse was named Trigger because she was blond and white like Roy Roger's horse.. and besides that.. it was a theme lol Roy Rogers also had a GSD named Bullet!

but as i said.... i didnt have trouble choosing names or peoples opinions till i got married.... as it is i need to choose a name for the pig and i dont really want input on it lol though i did JOKINGLY mention i wanted to name her after my husband's ex wife.................. well ok maybe i wasnt joking so much. but i'm not prepared to hate the pig!! 

Janet808

Sorry, one more post.  I always wanted to have a dog and name it Dog, and a cat, and name it...yes, you guessed it...Cat!  I know goofy, but that's me!  LOL

You and my husband both!  He's been kidding about naming our next dog "Dog", and fails to understand why I keep rebuffing that idea, lol.  He's the same person who thinks we should get a Puli, let it's cords grow long, and name it "Mop"....dork!  (By the way he's kidding...I think).

In an odd turn of events, 50% of my dogs have been named people names.  I had Jessica (a Golden) and Sadi (rough collie).  But Pandy (Samoyed) was named because she looked a little like a panda bear when she was young, and Honor is named after a World of Warcraft guild that DH and I are a part of.  When her registration goes through, she's going to be AliAK's Vereesa Windrunner.  Go go geekiness!

I don't think it really matters whether people use "human" names or not.  It just really depends on the dog.  Although some of the stories surrounding everyone's name choices are incredibly interesting! 

Ok here is our my pups came to get their names.

Sprite  -  Right after I got here I was watching Fantasia.  I was reminded of the Sprites in that movie.  Sprites are mischievous free spirits and that really fit the was she acted as a puppy.

Timmy - It is a play on the Lassie theme.  Everyone always said that Sprite looked like a little lassie with the 4 white socks, blaze etc.  Well I thought that every lassie needs their Timmy so....  It fit him as he and Sprite are best friends and always have been.  She would let him get away with bloody murder playing with her.

My GF's dogs.

Breezy - She was gotten from a breeder as a young adult.  My GF was going to rename her but I convinced her to wait.  After a couple of days she realized that Breezy really was a Breezy as she is so laid back and just floats gently thru life never really stirring up anything.

Snowy - A play on the blue merle theme.  She is a delicate girl just like a snowflake.

Gee that is a great question , I haven't had a pet with a non human name in decades. That goes for DH too. All of ours have wonderful names, some are a bit more lyrical than others and some are names we have given our 2 legged kids but we worried they might take some flak for it  Registered names are loftier but they are only trained to their call names anyway...

So we have Jasmine, Miranda, Phelan, Dakota, Mtzee,  Dreamer , Caine and Zion.

Jasmine is my heart and she is called Jazz more often than not. Miranda's reg name is Bwana's Law and Order, she is a liver nosed girl who we knew would have to be "Mirandized", Phelan is Celtic for Wolf, also my grandson's middle name.."Wolfe". Dakota is what his momma wanted to name her first born since she was a kid, Mtzee is Ch Bwana's It Takes a Thief CGC TT  so she comes the closest, DH's mother wanted to name her Mitzy for a fluffy puppy she had known 50 years before, I chandge both the spelling and name to MIsdemeanor and let her think she had named her, Dreamer is our Champagne Dreams pup and had I had another Daughter she would have been  Champagne Dream, Caine is for the Winds out of Africa, it's bad luck to name a dog Hurricane so again I took some liberties and She is Caine or Candy Caine...and lastly Zion both the National Park and a good old Moromn name , he is to have many "wives" if his breeder's dreams come true.

Bonita of Bwana

I like people names for dogs; non-people names are good too IF they are not put-downs.  I have heard of dogs' names that are rude or degrading.  We look at a U.S. map book to get ideas for cool names.

I'm not really partial to human names vs. non-human names - my animals have tended to have names that could go either way, and ones that fit their appearance and/or personality.

• Marcy - first Golden, named after Mt. Marcy (highest peak in the Adirondacks)
• Buffy Bear - second Golden.  Very light buff color... hence Buffy.  Also, in my defense, it was the Eighties and "Buffy" seemed... cool.
• Tucker - parents' current Golden.  Tucker just fit him .  I forget what his "full" name is.
• Nantucket Bay (Nancie) - horse #1.  Show name is fancier, barn name is a human name.  She was named before I bought her.
• Tally-Ho (Tally, Talus) - horse #2.  He is a retired racer and has a horribly boring registered name.  Tally just worked, and suited his personality.
• Riley (registered name is Sir Riley of Alexander's Village - I did not name him ) - came with the name.  I would have changed it if it didn't fit him, or if it was something I just really didn't like, but he knew his name and I didn't hate it, so it's stuck. 

I still very much want to own a Golden named Darwin ... someday !

Maggie's "registered" (with USDAA lol) name is Miss Maggie Mae Take it Away - I came up with it when I was 15 and now I think it's kind of silly.  She came into the shelter with the name Maggie and the staff added the Mae.  I kept her name because the staff there loved her so much and it didn't feel right changing it.  I do kind of dislike the fact that there are so many other Maggies around though; I have two in this round of training classes I'm teaching lol.

 Ziva's "registered" name will likely be "Stardog's Can't Take the Sky"  (another Firefly fan here!!! ).  Stardog is obviously my username here, but it's also going to be my "kennel" name for fun since I plan on doing a lot of performance stuff with Z and future additions.  Ziva is the name of a character on NCIS that has a personality like Z's to some extent: bold, outgoing, sometimes a bit confused, brilliantly smart, and full of spunk.   "Can't Take the Sky" is from the opening credits theme song from Firefly and I think it has great promise for an agility dog, plus Ziva works with it as it means "bright or brilliant" in Hebrew and thus it fits with the sky theme.
 

I named Emma probably two years before I got her. Her "given" name is Emma Nems, meant to sound like MnMs candy. I found out, after I named her (but before I got her) that "Emma" means "all embracing". I thought that was a very suitable name for a puppy. It didn't work, but I tried!!! Her registered name is "Mischeif N Miracles" because I was trying to do two "M" words with an "N" in the middle and an "s" at the end, LOL. Those two words describe Em perfectly.

Teenie Weenie got her name from a fit of sarcasm I had, the day I brought her home. She responded to it, and it stuck.

I love naming dogs, and I'm not into human names for dogs, at all. I prefer unique, silly-ish names. I just named three puppies from a friend's recent litter. The pups I named are Tofu (The Other White Meat), Qwuii (Blue Plate Special), and Lambchop (Had A Little Lamb). Qwuii is deep fried guinea pig, BTW. I like food names, a lot.  

A lot of my animals growing up have had not only people names but famous people's names.  It was something my mom started off since she was always fond of naming animals after famous artists and musicians.  She actually used to use it as a bargining chip when I was a little kid.  When she would finally give in to letting me get whatever animal it was I was begging for she would be like, "But you have to let me name it."  She had my cat's name, Picasso picked out before we even got him.  Guess it was lucky for him he was a splashy looking black and white that looked like he could fit Picasso's art.

Some of the names of our animals-

Socrates- Collie

Aristotle- Cat

LongFellow- Collared Lizard

Cleopatra- Praying Mantis 

Just to name a few of the animals who got their names this way.  My mom actually wanted to name Kirby, Mozart, but it didn't fit for me.  For the first week or two I couldn't think of anything.  I had a bunch of cool names I wanted to use, but he was too dorky for any of them.  I was this close to calling him Stinky Butt, when I settled on Kirby after watching him pluck ten separate snails from the ground and attempt to eat them before spitting them out.  I named him after the Nintendo video game character but most people always say, "Oh like the vacum cleaner?"  I guess in the end both meanings equal devouring everything in sight though. XD

Another thing I love about his name is it gives me an excuse for picking him out girly pink things since the video game Kirby is pink.  

My family had a cat named Cat. He wasn't ours. We had no intention of keeping him. (He was a neighbor's kitten who adopted us). So we called him cat, because we weren't going to name a cat that wasn't ours. So much for that. He died at the age of 20, Cat for many many years.

I tried to name one of my current cats after my husband, who is named after his father who is in turn named after HIS father. (The kitty would have been the 4th). Somehow his family didn't think it as funny as I did. That cat was instead named Senge, which is Tibetan for lion. Senge is my psycho-pee cat, and we wanted a name that would give him some confidence. His brothers are Schrodinger and Taurak. Taurak (or Tor) is a geeky name from my husband's high school role playing days.

Sasha came with the name, and we kept it. We decied to give Ivan a Russian name, to match, and came up with Ivan. That was later expanded to Ivan the Terrible.

Eko is named for Mr Eko of TV's Lost. I wanted an African name, but everything obviously related to S. Africa/lions/swahili/Rhodesia is taken. I'm not enough of a scholar to come up with something relevant and unique.i Mr Eko is Nigerian, a tough guy who is also sensitive and spiritual. Seemed fitting for an RR.

Our first beta fish was named Cat Snack. Then current one is named Jaws, for the way he eats. My daughter's fish is named after herself.
 

Billy the Venturin English Cocker spanYELL was 'Huggins' when he was rescued.  NOT a good name for a therapy dog (you don't encourage kids to squish the life out of them *sheesh*).

About 2 days after he came home with us ... David found him out back on the TOP of a set of 8 foot shelves.  No idea how he got there.  (no ladder, we think he teleported) - so the fact that he was adventurous was a given.

I'd already had a Pippin (Peregrine Took Blue Perkins - my very first dog), but he wasn't a Frodo nor a Sam.  However -- with the Adventuresome nature -- "Bilbo" was a natural and 'Billy' just works for short.

Luna was "Lunabella" when she came to us -- it doesn't fit her and it's dumb (I think).  Luna (as in Lunatic, Luney-tunes) DOES.  But I also call her Belle upon occasion.

Kee Shu was likely "Kishu" (her brother was "Mishu" as in Mushu pork I think).  But I just couldn't feature my husband yelling "Kiss YOU" out the back door -- soooooo Kee, she became.

Hm.. none of our (I only have the two, but I live with 6 total) animals have people names. Wasn't on purpose, different people named them.

We have:

Cherokee, who was named by my sister, her original owner.
Kovu, my kitty, named by me after a character in the Lion King 2.
Jaz (dog), named by my sister's exboyfriend, his original owner.
Lucifer (cat), named after the cat in Cinderella..we're not devil worshippers..I don't remember who came up with it originally..I was only 9.
Tiger-Lily (cat), named by the same sister who named Cherokee..after the princess (does that make it a person's name? lol) in Peter Pan..we have a Disney theme.
and Taz (cat), my cousin's kitty, living with us for a few years..but named by her.

My sister's kitty has a Disney name too, Rajah, which I guess is a people name, though he was named after the tiger in Aladdin. Her dog is Cowboy, and I dunno too many people named Cowboy...

I think the only animal I know who actually has a person's name is my aunt's dog Jack. His full name is Jack Sparrow. She seems to be a fan of the Disney names as well.

Cameo (cat) came with his name when the BF adopted him 3 or 4 years ago.

Crombie (cat): We thought he was a female when we got him so his original name was Luna from the talking cat on Sailor Moon but once we noticed he had some extra bits under his tail, BF changed it to Crombie after his aunt's old cat Abercrombie.

Maze (dog): We got her right in the middle of a move, two weeks earlier then expected. And I saw her, she looked so lost like she was going through life with a paper bag on her head and the name Maze popped into my head. Although some times I have to explain that No I didn't name her after corn (Maize)

Wolf (dog): Came with his name.. Old owner decided he wanted a tough name for his manly *snort!* dog. But personally I call him Buddy.. Lol

I don't see a problem with naming animals human names but personally I prefer something unique so I end up making up words. Maze is the most unique name I've seen so far (except for B'asia) and I've never heard of a dog with the same name. 

 Crusher is Ice Crusher.  I wanted an icy cold name for him, so I compiled a list of names to call him including Crusher.  BF picked Crusher from the list.

Onyx is black.  And my son is a Pokemon freak.  So when I mentioned Onyx as a possibility, he got all starry eyed because there is a pokemon named Onix.  

We used to have a Disney theme with our animals too.  We had Cinderella(who I refer to as Pint), Belle(male cat), Arial(the pup we kept from Pint), Sebastien(mouse) and Rajah(hampster, not mine, a friend's but she was a wannabe LOL) 

 Rose came with her name when I got her...Rocky Point Wildwood Flower.  She was named for the June Carter Cash song since she was born right around the time Johnny Cash died.  No one could bring themselves to call her "Flower," so, she became Rose.  Her brother was Rocky Point Ring of Fire...called Flame.  Colton is simple...Sandplum Ridge Colton.  I could not think of a name for him and tried all kinds of things.  When I asked my mentor for any ideas, he suggested Colton, since he likes simple names, and it fit him perfectly.  He is very human like so the human name fit.  Cash is Sandplum Ridge Johnny Cash.  He's from the first litter I ever bred on my own(well, still at my mentor's, but I did all the work).  I wanted all singer names for the babies to go with Rose's name.  The two we kept, I named Johnny Cash and Louis Armstrong.  Cash was the one I wanted to keep most so I wanted something closely related to Rose's name.  The only problem I ever have is when one of the boys does something, sometimes I say "Colton..no Cash!"  Too many C names.