<p>Our dogs are Cricket, Doodlebug (Doodle), Theodore (Teddy), Mr. B, and Nandy. They are all rescues, and we, as a family, only named Cricket and Doodle.</p>
<p>We had rats named Phydeaux and Spaught. Many cats, some of their names: Foo, Buud (after a Cosby Show reference), Tris (misnamed by prior owner who misheard the girl’s name in Blade Runner), Booger, and the only one we now have, Elvis (a black female who is our “velvet Elvis”). A boa constrictor named Fuzzy ('cause she wasn’t).</p>
<p>For anonymity’s sake, I’d rather not name my own pets. But my favorite pet names in all of literature are Miss Flite’s birds in Bleak House:</p>
<p>“Hope, Joy, Youth, Peace, Rest, Life, Dust, Ashes, Waste, Want, Ruin, Despair, Madness, Death, Cunning, Folly, Words, Wigs, Rags, Sheepskin, Plunder, Precedent, Jargon, Gammon, and Spinach.”</p>
<p>I always wanted to name a pair of kittens or puppies “Gammon and Spinach,” which means “nonsense” in Dickensian English. But my daughter and (then) husband exercised veto rights over this idea when it came time to name our pets. </p>
<p>My second all-time-favorite pet name: My friend named his dog “Damned Spot,” and made liberal use of the command “Out, Damned Spot!” He claimed he did it to induce his evangelical Christian mother to curse, and it apparently worked. The dog perversely refused to answer to plain old “Spot.”</p>
<p>I adopted a small, pure white cat. Too small for Blizzard, too thin for Snowball, so we named her Flurry.</p>
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<p>We had a wonderful cat named Holly (even though he was male) as I found him as a lost kitten one Halloween night. When I was pregnant with my second child, I so wanted to name it Holly if it was a girl because it just flowed so well with our last name. But I was concerned about the child always feeling it was named after a cat. So we selected another female name instead. Didn’t matter - it was a boy!</p>
<p>One of our current cats that showed up as a stray on my back deck we named Nukat. I was out of names at that point and we kept referring to him as the “new cat”. So it stuck.</p>
<p>For our rescue dogs, we had a Bernie, because he was part St. Bernard. We had a Tankerbelle, because she was all St. Bernard (and seemed like part Tank). Now we have a Bessie Mae, who is a very sweet southern girl from a West Virginia shelter. They all came with those names and we kept them.</p>
<p>Long ago a friend who lived in the same dormitory had a german shepherd named George. The friend’s name was Ruffy. </p>
<p>We now have 3 cats. The youngest is named Bug and was an only kitten. It’s pretty obvious how he got his name and he still lives up to it.</p>
<p>All other pets had normal pet names - although one cat from our past was named KC for Kitty Cat as we couldn’t think of a name for him and thought KC sounded neat.</p>
<p>Our newborn pony barn names get themes each year. It’s partially how I can keep them straight as to who is which age after a few years.</p>
<p>Someone I know just adopted a dog in the last few weeks. His name is Dempsey.</p>
<p>One of our prior cats was Inky, which was short for The Spanish Inquisition because (of course) nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!</p>
<p>A cat named Abai will soon join my household. Fingers crossed! He was rescued from a dumpster and named after the greatest philosopher and composer of his motherland. When baby kiddo took the cat to the local vet, the vet was shocked and appalled that she dared to use the revered name for a cat! Baby kiddo’s reaction, “Sheesh… Has he heard about the movie Beethoven?” For a second, she thought about naming the cat Borat, but wisely decided against it. 
I know a dog named Mozart. </p>
<p>Our pup is named Pippin after the hobbit Peregrin “Pippin” Took. He is cheerful, loyal and brave, but not particularly smart. Our rescued cat had the name Twitty which I did not like. Changed it to Kitty so he would not be too confused but he still doesn’t come when he’s called. ;)</p>
<p>My first cat was named Aja because I liked that album and my next cat was Maxwell, even though a girl kitty - because H & I both did graduate work at The Maxwell School. </p>
<p>When I was in HS, we bred a litter of puppies. They all had Greek names, since I was fascinated by Ancient Greece at the time. When I was in college, my mother bred Charis, the girl we kept from the Greek litter. I named the girl we kept from the second litter Rhiannon, after a character in the Mabinogion, because at the time I was heavily into Celtic lang and lit. This was BEFORE the song came out, and no Rhiannon was not a “Welsh witch,” no matter what Stevie Nicks said. It was horrifying to have people think I named her after the song, but oh well! In that same era I got my sister to name her Irish setter Cuchulainn, from The Tain. (It is pronounced, roughly, coo HUH len, with a guttural CH and means Hound of Cullen. Consider The Tain the Irish Iliad and Cuchulainn the Irish Achilles.)</p>
<p>The first dog I had as an adult was a GSD we named Micah. Our first golden was registered Mariner Road to the Isles (He was from the breeder’s “road” themed litter, and I am fond of the song, which seemed appropriate for a breed of Scottish origins. He had littermates named Mariner Ease on Down the Road and Mariner On the Road Again, Mariner Crossroads, etc.) His call name was Will. Our second golden was a rescue who came with the name Sassy, which a) I hated, and b) was the very opposite of her character. I changed it to Sally. She’s the one in the picture.</p>
<p>Einstein? I gues that’s a real life- “Back to the Future” influence.
For us, 2 girl bichons in all white, so we call one Opal and the other Pearl.</p>
<p>If we ever have another, and it’s female, we think Carol Anne. This way we can call out- “Carol Anne! Carol Anne!” sort of an inside joke referring to poor and repetitive dialog of movie Poltergeist 3.</p>
<p>My daughter named her fish Snorkel. A Darwinian moment - Snorkel the fish drowned.</p>
<p>I forgot to mention that a friend had an almost all white cat with some small light grayish spots around her head. He name was Purrl. :)</p>
<p>Last year my really cute and very smart sable Sheltie “Legally Blonde” , call name Belle. was very ill possibly terminal, possibly never able to compete again. The breeder offered me a 12 month old replacement/additional puppy, a tri male that she called by the same name as my youngest child. </p>
<p>I had to change the name before I got home. Compared to the petite and princess-like Belle, he’s oversized, gangly, and rough around the edges. </p>
<p>Called the breeder, told her I named him “Cooper”. There’s dead silence on the other end. She finally says “You do realize he’s not exactly a Mini-Cooper don’t you?” My response: He is absolutely a Cooper Countryman though – and that’s how I registered him: Cooper Countryman.</p>
<p>I volunteer at a shelter where littermates are usually given names that are related. Last week we had an Italian theme: Basil, Merlot, Pasta, etc. The week before it was musical: Rhianna, Ed Sheeran, Sting, Aerosmith. Before that: Cinderella, Thumbelina and another Disney princess I can’t recall. Customers get a real kick out of it.</p>
<p>Our current cat is Betsy, and she had a littermate at the shelter named Bobby. We feel compelled to say “Betsy and Bobby” with a British accent for some reason.</p>
<p>Our previous shelter cat was Opal. Dark, sleek, reserved, slightly regal. It suited her.</p>
<p>My daughters got a Sheltie pup when they were 8 (they’re now 20). At the time (and still are) they were crazy about horses. They named our Sheltie “Misty Sunshine” after the horse in the book by Margaret Henry “Misty of Chincoteague”. Misty is still with us and doing well for being 12 :)</p>