I was reading articles on AOL this morning and one was on talking to vets about things people name their dogs and cats. I got me to thinking about how in the world do we come up with our critters names?
Back to the subject at hand. I first saw a picture of Chloe when she was a couple of weeks old. I had the year before lost my beloved black schnauzer, Sophie (Mae), in a freak accident. She was only a year and a half old and I didn’t even want to think about another dog. The fellow that we rented the space for our frames shop had a mini-schnauzer that used to play with Soph and he bred her and he and Carol were trying to talk me into a pup. I did not even want to see the pups in real life so Carol conspired and gave him my e-mail address and Jerry sent me a picture. Out of the litter of six pups she was the only little girl, a requirement since I took my dogs to work with me and I couldn’t take the chance of a little boy hiking his leg and peeing on the art work.
Well, I looked at the photo and immediately told Carol that she looked like a Chloe but then dropped the subject. About six weeks later Carol had gone to the shop to do some bookkeeping on a Saturday and she called and said Jerry was up trimming up the yard in the strip mall and had the pups and I ought to come see them. I told her I didn’t think so and went back to working in the yard. She called again and said I really, really think you need to come see these babies so to stop her from interrupting whatever it was I was doing I ran up to the shop.
Needless to say, from the photos, I came home with Chloe Pearl Gardner.
SueSues’s name came about because at the time Carol’s mother was living with us. She had a hard time remembering Chloe’s name so I thought about it and decided to call the baby SueSue. When Carol was growing up they called her by her middle name, Sue, and I have a sister named Sue and I thought doubling the name up to SueSue would make it easier for Mom to remember. SueSue’s middle name is not only my middle name but I thought it was a fun twist on Souix Saint Marie which is in Canada and I have never been there but I heard of it years (and I’m talking many years) ago and the name stuck with me for some reason.
So that’s how my current furbabies came by their names and while they aren’t as different as some, they aren’t just the plain old run of the mill Cutie or Cuddles or Lucky, which by the way the vet in the article said don’t ever name a dog Lucky because it rarely is.
How about it friends and neighbors… do you have pets and what are their names and is there a special reason for those names?
Share with me… it’s a good diversion from all that is going on in my life right now and inquiring minds want to know.
I promise if my girls fall out laughing I won’t tell a soul.
17 comments:
I named my Chloe "Chloe" because...let's see.... I like names that end in the "eeee" sound, and she kind of looks like a "collie" but isn't. But I don't call her Chloe very often, she is commonly known as "Clovis" or "BooBoo". :)
For pedigree dogs, we have some help from the many rules imposed to us, so the choice is less difficult. Here are those rules:
Pedigree dogs names
That last photo is a kick. If our animals could listen to us talking about how we name our pets that is axactly how I picture them reacting.
We have had so many dogs and cats..., and goats..., and chickens etc. that I can't even remember why we named them certain names.
Some came to us with names and some were given names that just seemed to fit.
Our first cat was a little kitten we found. It was too young to not have a mother but we fed her baby formula with an eye dropper and she survived. I started calling her "Baby". I didn't want to give her a name because I didn't think she was going to live. Baby became "Babe". The name stuck and she lived with us for 17 years.
Thanks for reminding me of her. She was a wonderful cat.
When I was 5 we got a puppy and she piddled on any piece of paper left on the floor when my mother was trying to house train her. Hence the name "Puddles". She was my companion from kindergarten until the fall of my senior year in high school. Puddles was eventually housebroken.
My daughter named Sammy, the cat we have now. She thought the kitten was a "she", so it's a good thing it was a gender neutral name.
Staci, I have been told that ending the names with the eee sound as in Chloe is easier for a dog to recognize the sounds of our voices tonally... Sounds good but I don't know how important it is. As children me and my sibs shared a couple of pups of cocker and ??? descent and they knew their names... Peanuts and Domino. Peanuts was brown and Domino was black with white spots...
Oh wow, mic... pedigree names open up a whole new can of worms, don't they?
Connie you remember that I wrote way back when about my niece's turkey named Henny Penny... Seems some names just fit.
Sara Puddles definitely worked for your pup from your description. I had a friend that got a Siamese kitten for her daughter that ended up being named Dog because she followed her around like a pup. It is a fun subject, though, isn't it?
Well I think you already know about all my pets names
My first schnauzer girl was Sophie Marie, after Sophie Tucker.
Then my next girl was Chloe Kartay and her sister was Zoe. Chloe and Zoe have been my favorite names and I was saving them for my kids when I had them....well we all know how that went....LOL
Kelsey was already named when we adopted her, and our dog Jackie was already named when we adopted her also. My other dogs over the years were Frisky a Cocker, Bianca a Toy Poodle, Spookie a Cathoula Leopard Dog. My brother always says I come up with the names that are too weird...I have noticed if I name a dog then everyone copys me including you! LOL
I have three cats at the moment. The oldest one is called Mimi, a name inspired by the make-up encrusted character who played on the Drew Carey Show. We didn't give her this name. She came to us with it. She was white as snow and as tiny as can be - there was absolutely no resemblance to Kathy Kinney's character. But the name stuck.
The other two cats came to me from a couple who had gotten them from a shelter and later decided that cats were not their thing. I guess I sort of rescued them. They came without names, as the couple had only referred to them as Cat#1 and Cat#2. They were the strangest cats I had ever seen. I found out that they had been kept in a closet for their entire lives of just over a year. They were afraid of everything, fell off things and refused to be picked up. It took me a long time to find names for them. I finally settled on Felix and Oscar, characters from the Odd Couple. So I guess all of my current cats are named after television characters.
We named our scottish terrier Osceola but call her Oscie (pronounced Aussie) for short. It is a character's name from my favorite book, "In My Father's House". :)
Okay Sass, do you really want this long history?
Our pet names morph - I think a lot of people do that - so what starts out as one name ends up at 65. Minky is actually Minkler, my family last name (see the Lila Minkler Project blog). Then, of course, Minky became Minky Tinkerson. She's also Monkey, and on it goes.
Our only cat right now is Mimers, pronounced MIME-ers. It's short for Jemima, which comes from Jemima Puddle Duck (Beatrix Potter) but since she's not a duck, well, there you go, and this is how everything goes in our family.
We once wrote down JoJo's name (may she rest in peace and I will NEVER get over losing her two weeks ago.....) and they added up to about 30. She knew them all and answered to every one.
This was really interesting and I enjoyed finding out the origins of your little cutie's names. And the last photo? LOVED IT!!!! Love you, too.
Actually I didn't know that you had a Chloe when I got mine and named her Chloe... I. too, had a Sophie but I never knew you had one. Mine I named after Bette Midler's friend in her skits and I usually called her Soph. She was a special girl as I'm sure was your's also. Just to give you a heads up... if I ever get another pup I'll probably name her Molly McGee after Fibber McGee and Molly.
Hettie I love that MiMi was named after that character... what a hoot. Snd Oscar and Felix work even better for them now that I know a bit of their background. I just love you, girlfriend. You are one of my most fun blogging friends. Thanks for the smile from the Felix and Oscar story.
That's a good one, too, Ashley. I'm going to have to read that book. Anything that has a character that inspires a name for a pet has to be interesting.
My sweet SASS... I well know how you feel about losing your JoJO. My Sophie died very unexpectedly in an accident in our back yard. She was only a year and a half. She was the heart of my heart and I still have difficulty looking at photos of her and it has been 12 years. Missy (Carol Sue) said she figured Soph was on this earth to help her to understand how a person can come to love an animal so much. Maybe I need to scan my photos of her and do a story one day. As for Minky the magnificent... I loved that name when I first read it. The visuals I get from critter names is one of the fun things about reading them, but I've always been accused of having a weird mind. It took years to decide that was a good thing. Oh and feel free to steal that photo if you want... it's one of the fun ones I caught while the girls were rolling together out in the yard on God only know what. The one you can really see the smile on is Chloe Pearl. Suess's butt was towards me but it looks to me like they are ROTFLOL.
Well... I have two dogs, one Siberian Husky and Chocolate Lab. It took me a little while to figure out what to name the husky. At the time I was working with special ed. kids at the local high school (which I do now, but it was a different time)right after the movie Snow Dogs had come out. All the kids in the class next to mine are higher functioning and every single one of them thought I should name her Demon like the dog in the movie. I admit she did look a lot like him when she was younger, but I told them that was a boy name and she was a girl... After lots of thought and about three weeks I settled on Lucifur. I am not refering to the Devil himself but a play on the name Demon. We call her Luci for short. She is a stubborn and headstrong little girl... When she gets in one of her moods I call her by Lucifur and she instantly comes, just like a child when the mother is calling them by their full name. Her full name is Lucifur ...something something something Winter... has some of the names of her line in it, at least on her papers... obviously I dont use her full name.
My choclate Lab was a whole nother story... I got her for my husband for Valentines day since he had gotten me Luci for Christmas. He knew instantly he wanted to name her Remington or Winchester (because he is a redneck) so we asked her if she wanted to be Remi or Wini. When we said Remi she barked, and didnt for Wini... She is such a good Remi dog. She too knows that when we say Remington that she is in trouble. Plus the good thing with her is, all of her collars or leads have her name on them. They are either camo or hunters orange, which orange and brown go together very well.
I also have a snake named Soda. I Red-eared Slider named Tuck, a couple of crawdads, one is Icky. We have had lizards from Window Licker to Yucko-the-Gecko. We like off the wall names.
Sandra (I still will call you Sandy... it's my privilege since I'm your great aunt) you know everyone in our family is off the wall... some just hide it better than others... like why bother? Much more fun being off the wall weird. I love you Baby Girl!
I have three dogs now...
Hunni, named so because of the color of her muzzle. Like Pooh Bear's hunni pot.
Stretch, because he's a weiner dog, all stretched out.
Casper, because of his color. Very light, like Casper the Ghost. Although, I think he should have been named Scooter, because when he gets excited he runs all over the place.
We have (officially, my daughter has) a white Staffordshire bull terrier called Angel.
She was my daughter's birthday present and came from a litter bred from my sister-in-laws dogs. We had photos e-mailed and our girl had first choice. She chose the only white pup (apart from a brown ear)
Whilst waiting till she was ready to leave her mum lots of names were considered until one day my daughter said she just couldn't wait till her wee angel came home.
The name stuck. And she is a wee Angel. Even did her own blog once.
Fiona
I loved that story. You know how much I love my babies!! Our boy Harry...he got Harry because right from the start he was a little, down to earth "farm boy" or so we thought. He also walks like he has his trousers pulled up too high...hence the longer name of Harry Highpants that we call him now:) Scarlett.....well, I had a dog called Rosie who lived until she was 13 and was the love of my life!! So, when we got Scarlett I stuck with the colour red theme....if Harry had been a girl...he would have got Ruby!!
Do you have a pet than whats his name?
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WE have cats. 2 have passed. Chance got her name because she had been dropped off at my moms farm and we gave her a second chance. Socks got her name because all her paws were white. The 3 cats i have now Gizmo got her name because she looked like that little animal in the movie Gremlins. Jewel is all black with a white patch or necklace as we call it around her neck. And Shadow we named because she is black as black as can be. We also have 3 birds. the name charlie i borrowed from my Gramma her budgie was named Charlie. Sandy came to us with his name and sunny got her name because she is all yellow.
Penney
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