Kids named him for their favorite cheese.

already responded to--so I kept them.

I have quite a list--including a lot of old-fashioned names from our grandparents'/great grandparents' day..
"Clyde" always makes me smile for a goofy-acting male dog. Ethel, Gladys, Clementine (Clemmy?) for a female. Ahh, there are so many.

The last two dogs we got were adopted. I have a policy of keeping the same name for the dog. I figure the transition to a new home is hard enough without being called something new. Current dog: "Dozer" (not bad). Last dog: "Barkley" (horrible).

Charles, Leonard, Woody, Alice, Milo, Teddy, Jeoffrey. Only exceptions were Tulip and Pixie. One of the best cat names I knew of was Renfield, a neighbor's cat who liked to eat spiders.

Over the years Fred, Ricky, Dylan, Samantha, Riley, Jake, Freddie, Charlie and Andy

He was a little rough around the edges but slept in the nook of my armpit at times. I adored him despite his propensity to get mad and attack. He did not use his claws he just tried hard to bite me but was missing a fang so he could puncture my skin. He came with the name "South Park". I named him "Monster" to take him down a notch and make him scary like a Sesame Street character. People thought that name was cute.... especially at the different vets where I assume it was novel as pet names go.

Himmies are supposed to be calm and docile, but Yeti was a beast. He wasn't mean, but he took shit from nobody.

I also had a Tuxedo cat named Howie, short for Hell on Wheels. He was the biggest character. Our vet treated his littermate, Taz, so I think the litter was a bit mental. Howie's favorite Yuletide activity was me dancing to Chuck Berry's "Run Run Rudolph with him in my arms.

I still miss those cats.

She was studying art history and called him Monet. Many years later she had him declawed, so of course we added the first name and he became DeClaude Monet.

I named my rescue hound Tricksy because she was so good at spiriting food off my plate when my back was turned. I always liked that term from LoR.

I haven't met another Harper since.

Whenever she found herself invited to a social engagement she did not care to attend,
she would bow out, stating she needed to decline because "She had Company"...

🤣🤣🤣

. . . I once mentioned in an online community that I would love to have a couple of dogs named "Davenport" and "Chesterfield". Then, one of our community members made the astute observation that "Chesterfield" is clearly a cat's name. Couldn't argue with that.

Names of gods and goddesses make great pet names. "Bastet" being the ultimate cat name, of course.

For other possibilities, you can go to Godchecker.com, if you please.

Food names can be fun, also. I've named brown and white kittens "Nutmeg" and "Cinnamon" and a calico "Raisin Cookie". "Pistachio" and "Lemon Meringue" were names I considered for a green parakeet and a canary, respectively.

Subverting expectations is also fun. Consider "Rovera" instead of "Rover" for a girl dog, or a spotted dog named "Stripe".

The best names come from some essential characteristic of the animal involved. I had the sweetest orange and white dog who had little spots of orange everywhere he was white. Strangers seeing him before I formally introduced him called him "Freckles"; who was I to disagree?

Been reading that site since the mid 2000s!

All cats. Yes, 12. The house belongs to them. They have two cat rooms (former guest bedrooms) filled with cat stuff, the run of the rest of the house, and multiple self-cleaning litter boxes in convenient and tidy places.

The dogs, 3 of them, are Tui, Pip, and Mac. We all sit together and watch the cats for entertainment.

I can't stand to see an animal suffer and will rescue them and commit myself to their care.

Yes, we spend a small fortune in vet bills but they're worth it.

If I weren't married, I'd probably have at least 6.

What brand(s) of self-cleaning litter boxes do you have? I'm tempted by the idea. My husband's son and DIL have one of the $$$ Litter Robots and consider it worth the initial expense.

a good thing most days. Never a dull moment around here.

Right now, they're at the big windows up front swatting at the geckos on the outside of the glass. It's a nightly ritual. It annoys the cats that they can't "catch" the lizards but they persist.

The dogs and I are at the back of the house resting our nerves.

Is a name Mrs and I made up,
If you read it phonetically, sea, hawks,wee.

A phrase that always made Lil bit giggle
Also.had a dal once named Sherman T Spotted.
Koz

...when I watched him scampering across the floor and voila' - there was his name - Scamper.

And I had a black cat about the time Elton John's song Honky Cat was popular. A black cat named Honky Cat appealed to my sense of irony. He liked to go on walks with me.

Long-time NPR listeners might recognize that name as the cowboy poet and large animal veterinarian.

I would not have remembered his name without your reminder here.

I live in a 10 unit condo complex and a couple of owners/residents have dogs. One woman's dog died last year and about six months ago she adopted a dog from a shelter. The shelter named the dog Brooklyn so she kept that name for the dog. We had new renter move in recently and their dog's name is Bronx. Purely confidentially the two dogs are named after two of the five Boroughs of New York City.

I'm usually the one bringing them home, so I figure it's only fair for him to give them a name.

Dogs: Pebbles (named by the shelter where we adopted her), Fritz (Spaniel mix), Heidi, Dee and Roach (German Shepherds), Beauregard (Weimaraner), Ciora (Beagle), Finian (Terrier), Sadie and Katie (Shih tzus).

Cats: Na Bean, Don Chat, Beghan, Penelope, and Keely. The first three names are Gaelic for Don't Touch... The Cat ... and Little One.

When we got her as a puppy, my parents let my 3-year-old brother name her. He was trying to say "puppy" but missed. What's great about the name is that every year we'd sit around the TV waiting for a scene in The Wizard of Oz that would make Poppy sit up and start barking because a voice was calling her name.

That's my dog...pronounced in Italian. Think about it.

Was named Matcho.

And all cats are unimpressed when called Zeetle.

My sweet cocker long passed.

DOG= DeeohGee

…of my husband’s unpleasant, self-centered ex-wife. No way we were keeping that name. She was renamed Chessie before we even left the shelter and I crossed out the shelter name on the adoption paper work.

We have a little female Siamese with breathtakingly beautiful eyes that are almost turquoise. Her shelter name was Hazel, which made no sense because her eyes are not green, and, it reminded me of the old TV sitcom with Shirley Booth, which I found unappealing in my childhood.

This beautiful little kitty was renamed Charlotte. Her mother’s shelter name was Lottie. As we were driving home, I remembered that Lottie is a nickname for Charlotte, and that immediately felt like the right choice. It was a way to honor the momma cat, and was dainty and feminine, just like this cat is.

I named the white one after the eponymous cat in a 1,200 year old poem, White Pangur. So his brother is Yellow Pangur, Pangur Buí. And don't ask what "pangur" means, you don't want to know, even if means that you would be forever grateful for cotton and synthetic fabrics.


I and Pangur Bán, my cat,
  'Tis a like task we are at;

  Hunting mice is his delight,

  Hunting words I sit all night.

 Better far than praise of men

  'Tis to sit with book and pen;

  Pangur bears me no ill-will,

  He, too, plies his simple skill.

 'Tis a merry thing to see

  At our tasks how glad are we,

  When at home we sit and find

  Entertainment to our mind.

 Oftentimes a mouse will stray

  In the hero Pangur's way;

  Oftentimes my keen thought set

  Takes a meaning in its net.

 'Gainst the wall he sets his eye

  Full and fierce and sharp and sly;

  'Gainst the wall of knowledge I

  All my little wisdom try.

 When a mouse darts from its den,

  O! how glad is Pangur then;

  O! what gladness do I prove

  When I solve the doubts I love.

 So in peace our task we ply,

  Pangur Bán, my cat, and I;

  In our arts we find our bliss,

  I have mine, and he has his.

 Practice every day has made

  Pangur perfect in his trade;

  I get wisdom day and night,

  Turning darkness into light.

Named a black cat Ghirardelli because his fur reminded me of dark chocolate. He was also a beer drinker, and very picky about his beer too. He preferred craft beers (he didn't drink much, just a bit off the top of my glass). He has long since passed over the rainbow bridge.
Have another cat simply named Cali, because she's a calico, and when my husband rescued her from the raccoon that was trying to make a midnight snack of her I couldn't think of a more clever name to give her when I rushed her to the vet for care of her injuries.
Won't name my cats after supernatural beings or the deities, because over the years every cat I named with those names usually died within a year or so.

I had nothing to do with that {orvious forsters were Bridget and Sumu (Finnish for fog, bercause she was gray and I was thinking of the Sandburg poem). My husband has ordered me out of the foster business, so I just have to name shelter strays when I get the chance.

Previous cats I have been owned by: Don Bosco (who appeared at my door one day and was named for the patron saint of street kids), Mittney (a tucie girl, how my daughter said m"mittens" when she was little), Bitty, Jack, McFurzie (a lonhaired white boy), BT, Abigail, Gabriel. Dos (most of whom came with their names): Rainy, Porsche, Annie, Tansy, Mikey.

Zoey - 5 year old daughter named the first 2 cats
Basil - whoop de do Basil
Budweiser - day we got him he upended hubbies Bud and was licking it up quite happily
Astro - goofy big dog
Missy - sons cat that we inherited
Coco - sick rescue tuxie cat but neighborhood cat was already named Tuxie so we found something else appropriate.
Finley = already named when we got him
Foggy - sick feral cat who came up to us out of the fog by the river every morning.

Tigger - cat
Robin - cat
Hunny


Critters I've lived with as an adult:
Midgelynn - ferret
Donald P. Duck - cocker spaniel
Fred - Chow
Chili Dog - chow mix
Magilla Gorilla - Chow
Monkey Face

She called it Sushi

I had a betta that I named Lt. Sushi.

My kids were very young and decided to name them after their cousins. I thought it was cute, but my husband was worried his siblings wouldn't think so.

It was a great name.

Have had several cats over the last 40 plus years. Out of those cats we only adopted one male and we named him Zephyr and his sister from same litter we named Zoie.

(Google it for pictures) named Natasha. I was a big Rocky & Bullwinkle fan.

Also, a 15 year old rescue cat named Zippee. He would dart all over the place, so the name fit him.

Then later in life a dalmatian Spotakiss, cats Samantha and Serena, Georgie a parrot. Now I have my cat Tommie and outdoor strays I feed are a cat Little Girl and 2 racoons Rickie and Rocky.

named "Pete" and "Repete." They looked very much alike.

Boo, who we lost in 2021
Atticus, who now lives with our daughter and son-in-law
Scout, a neighborhood cat, who camps out on our porch and eats us out of house and home.

It reminds me, my sister once got a kitten with a black fur spot resembling a half-mustache. She named him Dali, and I remember how she cried when he passed some 15 years later.

He was, you see, a very elegant cat.

A friend liked his name so much he later named his Weimaraner "Rensselaer Diamond (family name)" .

Spanish for "I run". His prior owners named him that,

He was a family surrender to the shelter at age 7.

He passed away in March at the age of 13.

The past few months, there has been a big black & white tom cat hanging around our house that I have officially named FiveO.

I had gotten him at one yr old from the ASPCA when I lived in Calif. He was named Rocket, and I kept that. It totally fit him. I had 2 other doxies out there, named Cedric and Franklin.

I named my Borzoi, Jazzmin, as a puppy. We called her Jazzy. I adopted 2 Salukis from a breeder who fell on hard times. They had the breeding kennel's name, and then Monopoly and Audacity. They were called Parker, and Audrey. I've also had Greyhounds off the track. All of my Sighthounds have been so smart, and so beautiful.

Our current pack is the old man Pyr, Duke, Frankie, the Scottish Collie, and Grace, another Pyr. The first 2 already had their names when we adopted them. Gracie's name at the Humane Society was Lacey. They all answer to the name, "Cheese."

We have 20+, "barn cats," that have shown up over the years, and mostly hang out on our front porch. Two of the girls were pregnant when they wandered here, Mocha and Millie. Mocha's kids all have coffee names, our dear departed Millie's kids have tree names. Our one house cat is Simone.

So, so many furry kid lives and loves. My screen name came from my wonderful gelding that I had for 25 years.

An Aussie mix
Lost him in November of 23. Miss that little dude every day.
Is it weird that I still talk to him sometimes?

We had two cats named Satchel after Satchel Page and Smike after the Dickens character.