How did your dog get his/her name?

My Landseer Scannon was named after  Lewis & Clark's Newfoundland  (later 'they' whoever they was,researchers whatever) figured out that the memoires were just written messy and the dog's atctual name was Seaman. I just could'nt imagine yelling that out the back door! So I went with the incorrectly info name!! Reg Name Watchbear's Muddy The Mudskipper ( he tend to be a dirty boy)
 
My GSD is Ilsa I wanted a simple no nonsense German name,not so girly. Reg Name Diva Vom Landshaft, and she is at that!!!

i didnt name either of my dogs. i do like moca though cause it is so fitting (moca=mocha).
jason... well i dont know what the hell they were thinking. i hated the name, but didnt change it, cause i had my hands full house training and learning about dogs and training, and oh well, let's just say i was overwhelmed.
now i regret it, but i think that if i change the name now it is harder, cause I'M now used to his name. oh well. if it was up to me i woulda named him latte []

I`ve only owned German Shepherds. I was taught to use 2 syllable names and 1 syllable commands. I always use German names (except once). Right now at home are Kaiser, Nika, Ruger.

My mom named Honey when we first got her, I was only 11 at the time, and she said "She's brown, let's name her Honey."  [8|]  Honey's middle name is Marie, or Maria, or Honey Bunches of Oats, lol.
 
Cody got his name because my fiance looooooved his 05 Dodge Dakota, and Cody was supposed to be his dog.  We went through a couple of names on the way home, things like Hemi, Ram, Dodge, Dodger, etc.  But Cody just seemed to fit, as short for Dakota.  His previous owner named him Wilson from Dennis the Menace, but I didn't like it.  However, Wilson is now his middle name, when he's in trouble, it's Dakota Wilson!
 
When I was a kid we got a mixed breed pup from the pet store (I know, but c'mon, I was, like 7!) in North Carolina while we were on vacation.  Since we were at the beach, we named her Coral.  She was the best dog ever, I still miss her, and she died six years ago.

My daughter (only child) is getting ready to attend college next year, so I was comiserating with Mr. W at the local watering hole about how lonely I was going to be when she left and that I thought it would be a good idea to get a dog.  He was totally against the idea, but as the night drew on and I fed him more and more shots of a fine Irish Wiskey called "Jameson's" and kept giving him all kinds of senerios wherein he and I were going to become so "chummy" since I had no one left in the house . . . . well he finally gave in.  Hence the name Jamison.  (I spell it differently - but he's named after the whiskey!!!!!)

With a skip in her step and long reindeer like leaps in her jump Prancer named herself
(her name at the rescue was Dolly Madison - yikes)
 
(love the Snufa name !  he's adorable)

Bubblegum...now there is an interesting one!  WRONG!  Actually since her breeder named her, I had to ask why the name? She said "look at her eyes...don't they remind you of Bubblegum?"  No,,,, not really...not at all. And I don't know why they remind her of bubblegum. She has one brown eye and one half blue and half brown,,, the blue is so light that its almost white.
She does have a daughter that is a show girl in Alaska named Jelly Bean,,,I bet the name Bubblegum has something to do with that name,,,being in the sweet something to put in your mouth catagory.  She looks just like Bubby too!
 
Probably the funniest name I have seen is a dog that came into work last week...his name is Snort.   Doesn't look like a Snort...have no idea why!

When we went to the shelter and found "Cocoa" I knew instantly I wanted to name her Kiara....I had always loved the name from the Lion King2...(it's spelled Kira but pronounced Key r ah though so I liked the Kiara spelling better) We said if we get her a male friend we will name him Kovu who was also in the movie as her lil bf LOL
Kuruk's first name was Motego and the 2nd owners renamed him Kuruk which they thought meant " little wolf " when actually it is bear...Since we had 2 K names already we decided to keep it It gets confusing at times though LOL

Nothing too exciting here.  My husband works for Otis Elevators.  When we got our baby, his mom jokingly suggested we name him Otis and after looking at him, he definitely looks like an Otis. 

I'm impressed with how creative some of you are!  Sometimes I don't think I have an ounce of originality or creativity in me.  lol
 
I got Luke from the Humane Society and the name on his door was.....  Luke.  I threw around a few different names for him and everyone went "ehhhhh" when I said them, so I wimped out and kept Luke.  Thankfully it does fit him.  I think it's a dignified "human-type" name for a dignified dog who thinks he's human.
 
The only pet I've *ever* named is my horse, Norman.  I got him as a weanling named Prince.  I'd known another horse named Prince that I just hated, so I couldn't keep the name.  I did some research and found that the Percheron breed originated in the Normandy region of France.  Norman is a Percheron/Thoroughbred cross -- Because I think completely changing a horse's name is bad luck, his full name is Prince Normandy.  But he's just Norman.
 
I never considered changing Sar's name.  His registered name is Silver Sar Moniet.  There was no way I was calling him Silver.  []
 
When we got our Westie as a kid, I wanted to name him Charlie but my dad said we had to follow the alphabet.  Our Scottie was Alex.  So the Westie became Buddy.  The next Scotty was Cody.  Guess we'll have to see if my dad remembers his alphabet rule with the next one.  It's been a while, I doubt it.

I used to MUD a lot, Methios was the name of my best friend's tank.  He was so notorious for player killing that he'd log in, and refreshing the player list would show half the people logging off as his presence became known.  But in person he's one of the funniest, sweetest guys I've ever known.  And still know!  10 years later.  So with his permission, I named my dog after that char of his.  My dog is the complete opposite of his namesake though, since he's soooo not aggressive and murderous     

My husband named her Mitsubishi aka Missi, because he really likes cars.  At first I really didn't like the name at all...but after having her for a few months it just seemed to match her. I only really call her Missi, and that sounds like a princessy kinda name..and Missi is a huge Princess lol

To understand the evolution I must begin with my first pet, a cat since I was in an apartment and working 2 jobs.  My Mum is Irish and speaks Irish (Gaelic) and she paid for him on my birthday (he's from the humane society) so she got to name him.  He is Mocarra which is spelt wrong but in Gaelic it means My Friend.
Next came our Chocolate lab - at the time we lived on Monroe street so he became Monroe Magee (Magee after my maternal grandmother who bred Irish Setters in Belfast).
Years later we are picking up our little German Shorthair Pointer before he lands at the rescue and we have no idea what to name him.  I think it should be Irish with an M and my husband thinks it should be German.  The puppy is fussing in the car when a Van Morrison song comes on the radio and the puppy starts to sing along, when the song ends he goes to sleep!!!  It was amazing and he has been Van Morrison ever since.  When we call him it's a sing-song Mooorrisssooooon type call and he loves it.

When we got our Swissy we wanted a different name.  We went through dog name books and sorted out all the names that were different and cool.  We both liked the name "River" and name him on day one.  We are rescuing a new female dog and are going to change her name to "Brooke".
 
ETA:  His official name is River Sussex (we live in Sussex County).

Rosco: His shelter name was Jimmy Dean, and I was not about to have my baby go through life with that name. Rosco seemed to fit, so Rosco it is. Although DH didn't like the "e" at the end so we dropped it.

Lexi: Was Pearl at the shelter, which did not fit her at all. We adopted her Forth of July weekend and wanted something associated with the fight for independence and the American Revolution. A lot of the names we came up with didn't fit her, so we named her Lexington, for the battles of Lexington and Concord, which were the first battles of the Revolution (fought during April 1775 not July, but whatever)!

Luna: Registered name is Incandescent. I pulled it from the last line of the movie version of Pride and Prejudice, where it's used as "incandescently happy". That's how I felt as soon as I saw her. I knew she was a heart dog. Incandescent also fits because it means:
1. intensely bright; brilliant.
2. Characterized by ardent emotion, intensity, or brilliance.

Her call name, Luna, doesn't fit because the moon doesn't glow with heat. But we like the name and figured the moon glows by reflecting the suns light, so whatever, close enough.