The Naming

One of the unsung minor perks of being in small animal practice is the exposure to the ever-changing landscape of pet names. This might not seem like a "perk", but I enjoy learning the names and, for the unusual ones, asking how they came up with them. For obvious reasons people allow themselves far more latitude for creativity with pet's names than with their children's. That said, there is also a lot of overlap and there has been more than one family where I have had to be very careful not to refer to the dog by the daughter's name because, honestly, Bailey is a far more common dog name than human name (with all due respect to you wonderful human Baileys out there).

The range of pet names is breathtaking. I normally change all the names in the blog, but for the purposes of this discussion I'm sure nobody will object if I just list the names of all the animals I saw at work yesterday as an example of what I mean:
Tikka, Snerkle, Junie, Gunner, Silvester, Kayne, Kirby, Annabell, Maggie, Milkshake, Poppy, Stewie, Ben, Wimbley, Rico and Castle.
This is absolutely typical. Nothing crazy, but clearly a lot of thought and some creativity there. And each of them an individual perfectly suited to their name.

Some common names are presumably easy and quick to give - Tigger for a tabby cat, Blackie for a black Labrador - but many probably involved a lot of debate in the family. For those of you for whom this was the case, isn't it interesting how a name that was so difficult to come up with, and that you were a bit uncertain about at first, now seems so inevitable and perfect in retrospect? This even happens for objectively inappropriate names. I had a cat patient named Bob for a number of years. Bob was a girl. They had been told that she was a he when they got him/her and didn't think to double-check. I had to break the news to them when they brought Bob in for the first shots, at which point the name had already stuck. They didn't try to feminize it to Bobbie or Roberta, saying that she still "looked like a Bob". And you know what, they were right. I now can't imagine her being called anything else.

My own dog's name of Orbit came about after trying on several others that just didn't feel right. One day we were watching him rocket around the house in circles and we started saying Sputnik. Yeah, I know, that would have been wrong so many ways, but it did get us going on that theme, from which Orbit emerged. It also helped that he ate everything in sight and that roadside trash containers in Manitoba when we were growing up were called "Orbit", as in "Put your trash in Orbit!" (see photo above). Our one cat, Lucy, was named by my daughter after a second cousin in Germany who had made a strong impression on her. We got the second cat shortly after and Isabel though she should have a German human name as well. For fairness and symmetry you know. Many were considered and rejected until she settled on Gabriella, which instantly became Gabi.

But of course the best part of discussing pet names are the weird ones and the funny ones. Unfortunately although my memory is generally really very good, it has a glitch when it comes to names. They appear to reside in the mental equivalent of a sock drawer. So, while I originally intended to present something like a "Top Twenty Fun & Wacky Pet Names I Have Encountered", sitting here right now I can only come up with three... In no particular order then:

1) Russell Bertrand - As in, the cat's name was Russell and the owner's last name was Bertrand. The fact that this amuses me speaks strongly to my geekness. The reverse, Bertrand Russell, was an important English philosopher, writer and Nobel prize winner who lived from 1872 - 1970.

2) Maximillian Samba-socks - Another cat. I don't know why, but this one still cracks me up years later. Even this bizarre name suited him perfectly. Maximillian Samba-socks could only be Maximillian Samba-socks.

3) Satan - They thought it was hilarious naming their their little black poodle Satan. At least they thought it was hilarious until they found out that he had a habit of disappearing deep into their big yard at night and often had to be loudly and repeatedly called back to the house, "Satan! Satan come here!"

As I can only offer you three of these right now, I will crowd-source a longer list. I'll solicit comments from colleagues and friends on Facebook and paste their responses below. Also please feel free to leave a comment on the blog!

Thank you!


From Facebook:



"Morsel the mouse is one of my favourites. A 15 gram mini hamster named Jaws. 60kg Rottie named Peanut. A stray taken in named Spare Cat all come to mind . Oh, and a female pug named Frankie. Owners last name is Money. Frankie Money... sounds like a rock star to me."

"Daycare hamster named by committee - Princess Monster Truck."

" I had a dog by the name of "Porsha"... Everyone wants to "Porscha"! Had a dog called "Nad"... when they wanted the dog to leave the room they thought it was hysterical to say go- Nad. I personally thought the name I gave my dog was awesome it was vetoed by my receptionists though... Called the dog "Bumpkin" one of the characters in The Hobbit. When the dog behaved well I said "good bum" when the dog misbehaved I said "bad bum" ... Probably just as well with the me-too movement. My receptionist brother's dog is called Askem... when you ask for the dog's name he says Askem... people always give you a funny look!"

"My favorite are the ones where the kids don't agree so they have two or three names strung together."

"for a short while we had a Rabbit we named Stewie, we also had a mouse called Morsel, 2 rats named Stinky and Tim (Brothers) and two budgies named Bert & Ernie"

"Piggy, Puddles and Potato the pugs. Alliterative AND descriptive"

"Whenever this question comes up, my mind always goes to "Stirfry" the cat."

"Deeogi the dog. Get it? D-o-g spells dog. When I saw that written on the file I was all,"oh...what an interesting name. How do you pronounce it?""

"I also really like the cat named Pierre Trudeau (PT for short)...when I enquired why, the owner replied that the cat was handsome and arrogant"

"Not so much the name of the pet but an oops moment as a third year student at the Portage Animal Hospital. Small cards were easily misread. The inappetent Iguana came in for a recheck and I asked "Raymond" "How is your lizard:? Turns out the lizard was Raymond!"

"Also a favourite...a cat named "Franz Joseph" (named after an Austrian emperor) which also happened to be the name of my late grandfather who immigrated from Austria."

"Deefor (D for dog), Mimi the cat (after the tragic character in La Boheme, but should have been Me me, because that's all she cared about). A common human name, but unfortunate dog name, is Jack. I was at the offleash park when a dog started jumping up on me. His owner was yelling from far away, "Jack off!" Over and over...  At the age of 5 I named our first dog Sally Anne Stephenson. She just went by Sally."

""Airmail" The Airedale.. Usually known as the whole phrase "Look! Here comes 'Airmail the Airedale'". A Chow, "Mr Kurt Russell". I was told when we first met that it is MR(!) Kurt Russell " ! (No "Kurt" or "Russell" or even "Mister" ). A budgie named "Lil' Shit". I always laughed thinking if the owner had to call for him loudly..."

"The Chihuahuas win out for me - Princess Taco, Mr Timothy Bits (although the owner said she might have to shorten his name after he was neutered)."

"Cat named Quincy Turtle!"

"Saw a Pug yesterday called “We Z”"

"A cat named Hey You."

"A sweet Golden Retriever named 'Dexter'... after the serial killer."

"A rabbit named Bunny and her owner’s last name is Hopp."

"My very favourite: Seiko, "because she's a watch dog", said my friend who named her. Also: Matic, a black Lab. As in "dogmatic" for those not quite in the zone. For a while we gave our barn cats names beginning with "cat", therefore Catalpa and Catalan. There are endless ones to choose from in that category (sorry): Catastrophe, Catalina, Catamaran...We drew the line at Catamite. When we named our black and white tuxedo cat Orca (pretty obvious, but irresistible), our daughter was a little disappointed, but pointed out that he could still have a "cat" name by adding a "t" to the end: Orcat."

"I don't know if I ever told you what a fiasco it was getting to the name Gibson! I had had a name in mind that I was set on and it became clear I should've used 'executive order' and not asked anyone else....but....I didn't...sigh.... A day and a 1/2 of calling this little puppy "Puppy...come here, Puppy!" while my young adult children rejected every name I offered up (and some of them were REALLY good ones, in my mind! ie: Griffin, short for Griffyndor!) and gave a laundry list of 'reasons' why each name was no good...too common, too lame, too much reminding them of this, that and the other thing, too this, too that...GRRRRR! If I went thru 50-100 names that would not be an exaggeration! Then my parents got in on rejecting each name...And of course, each person offered up all their own names, none of which I liked because they were from favorite shows (Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones) or from the 50's - Rusty, etc. There are few things MORE "fun" than trying to name MY new dog, with 3 different generations, lemme tell you! LOL Exasperated and ready to drink the basement bar dry after 36 hours of this and no end in sight, as I was standing in the basement declaring "oh my God, you 2...this poor puppy needs a name before he thinks his name IS "Puppy"!! what should happen? A beam of light suddenly shone thru the bottle of Gibson rye sitting on top of the bar,(that I might've been greedily devouring straight out of the bottle in my mind at that point! lol) and the color of the rye? Almost identical to the color of my puppy! I suddenly and excitedly said "Gibson!!" He's the same color as that Gibson rye, his name should be Gibson! It's not common, it's different but not insane and it has a hard letter sound!" (which was important to me for reasons I don't fully understand!) They shrugged and made faces, I said next time I took him out, I was going to try it out...just like I tried out all THEIR names - Magnus and other ill-fitting names. We made our trek outside, I called him by a few other names still being considered but which I didn't love at all and the minute I called "Gibson" he stopped and turned and came right to me....and in that moment, he became Gibson! I marched inside, told EVERYONE, every opinionated person that I was making an executive decision on the spot - he shall be known as Gibson! The End! And while the boys were ambivalent, they didn't hate it..my parents didn't really like it (in fact, my dad insisted he'd call him by the name HE liked better! So that had to be stopped before starting!) but now.....1 yr later - no one can imagine him being anything other than Gibson..inspired by how much I was eyeing that bottle of rye that morning! ";)