Animal Welfare Professionals

What are your pet's names and what's the story behind their names?

My dog's names are Gabby e and Bella.  I kept Gabbye's shelter name as it suited her.  Bella was her name when I adopted her.  They do it their names

Baron - the shelter said his name was Max but when we called him that he literally turned his nose up! He had a red collar so I said what about the Red Baron. He turned to us and ran up to us so Baron it was!

Mack - came with that name from the shelter so we kept it.

Archie - was not answering to his shelter name nor Blue which is what the girl who found him had been calling him. We found out through the Nextdoor app that a neighbor knew him and his name had been Archie. The minute we called him that he responded! 

I had a pit mix that looked just like Petey from Little Rascals except the opposite coloring. Not being a Little Rascals fan I didn't know what the dog's name was though. This was before my parents had an answering machine so Petie had to wait 4 days before being named because my mom was not answering the phone. And I ended up spelling his name wrong but he was oh such a Petie! :-) 

When my kids were small and into Dungeons and Dragons and Ghost-Busters we started naming our dogs for monsters.  In the fifty years since we have not run out of names. PS I also told my kids that we could only afford pets because none of us smoked.

My "first born" dog's name is Kloke (pronounced cloak-ee). One of my college basketball teammate's last name was Kloke so that's what we always called her on the court. Having to say her name on the court a lot, one day in practice I joked with her that Kloke would be such a great dog name. Later that year, I asked my dad for a dog and my Godmother's daughter had a couple of pits that had some puppies and the rest is history!

Because of Kloke, we decided to keep naming all of our pets with the letter K so soon after came... 

Karter - named after rapper Lil' Wayne and his album that came out The Carter 3 the year we got Karter. His original name was Larry when we adopted him and quickly changed that to fit the crew.

Kooper - named after another close friend whose last name is Cooper

Plus a variety of fish we've had throughout the years and a couple of scorpions with names like Klick, Klack, Korea, Khalifa and Kudi. We also have a running list of K names for the next animals that come into our lives :) 

Well, of course, I can't tell the story behind thousands of foster names...but mine have been:

My first dog was named Dangeresque Charcoal March of Spiders the First.  His shelter name was Charcoal, which I thought was not magnificent enough for him, but I included it in his full name.  Dangeresque was a reference to a web cartoon (oh, how I miss the 2000s...) but I just called him Danger.  And 'Charcoal March of Spiders' just sounds cool.  It is the name of a made-up martial arts skill from an RPG my roommate was running at the time.  Nerds....

Cats, Caedwyn and Taliesin, came to me as Shasta and McKinley.  OK, white cats.  Both names are Welsh and mention being white in them.  I have a lot of Welsh ancestry.

Lacey, toy poodle, got to keep her name as she knew it and it was the only thing that she'd respond to.  Poor kid was an owner request euthanasia at 10 years young because she was "too sickly".  Oregon State vet students removed her mammary tumor as part of a project and she lived another good 4 years (and lost an astonishing 2.5 pounds!)

Spenser, "cockapoo" came with the name Sirius.  Siriusly?  I renamed him after Edmund Spenser, author of the very long English poem The Fairy Queene.  Not sure why.

Cats edition 2, Sara and Shoshonna, were Honey and Marley at the rescue.  My partner named Sara after a relative, and Shoshonna is a Hebrew name which means "Rose", a reference to a previous, much-loved cat.  I actually picked the name for its sound and appearance before learning the meaning, but that made it dearer.

Mhina, toy poodle, kept not only her call name from her breeder (retired show dog) but also her surname--she'd respond sometimes to Mhina Mitchell when nothing else worked!  LOL!  Mhina is an African-origin name meaning "delightful".  She was a delight.

Mimsy, Great Dane, was named Minnie at the rescue, due to a supposed resemblance to Minnie Mouse, a cartoon character I can't stand.  Fooling around with names, we called her Mimsy on the  ride home and she immediately responded.  It was funny because at the time our rescue had a cat named Mimsy. too.  Oddly enough, I had a foster cat at the time named Cici, and the foster parent of Mimsy the cat adopted a puppy she named...Cici.  Cici the cat and Mimsy the cat have long since been adopted but I'll always remember them by Cici the Aussie and Mimsy the Dane.  "Mimsy" comes from Lewis Carroll's poem "The Jabberwocky".  As in, "all mimsy were the borogoves".  It's a word he popularized (apparently not, like many other words in the poem, a new made-up word) but you may know a reference to it in the children's movie "The Last Mimzy" which is a different spelling.  "Mimsy" is the original spelling from the poem, though.  It is, claims Humpty Dumpty in Carroll's Alice Through the Looking Glass, a portmanteau (blended word) for "flimsy' and "miserable" but it sounds fun and bouncy to me, just like Mimsy the dog.

Bonus: my parents' late cat, who I picked out while in high school, was named Jean-Baptiste.  She was a female.  (Jean-Baptiste is a French name for a male).  I'm not sure the reasoning at the time.  She had no name when adopted, only an AC number.  I think I also suggested naming her Fenchurch but that was vetoed.  Jean-Baptiste means "John the Baptist"  and was a very popular name c. 1700-1800s France.  Quirky and strange kitty!

Mufasa came from a hoarding situation and we are pretty sure he was the Dad to all the kittens that came in with him. So, he was deemed the king and named Mufasa.  

There's way to many to list, so I'll just go with the cats I named myself.

Onyx was my first cat -- a present for my fiance for his birthday. We named him Onyx because as you might have guessed, he's black. Then there was Aelah, a name I used in a game, that I thought was nice. The next was Xephyr, who was actually named by my husband after one of the more difficult songs on Dance Dance Revolution. Zafiro was also a name I used in a game that I liked.

Nox is a spell in Harry Potter, and I'm a huge Potterhead. He's also a black cat, and yes, we did eventually have a white one named Lumos. Happily, they were best friends. Sadly Lumos was a hospice foster in kidney failure, so he passed a way a few years ago.

Percival the Terrible got his name while I was reading books on Arthurian legend, and he was (and still is) a little sh*t. His brother from another mother is Alexander the Great Balls of Fire. He got his name because my husband wanted to name him Fireball and I wanted to name him Xander (from Buffy the Vampire Slayer). We compromised. He is as every bit as troublesome as his name implies. Drusilla is also named after one of my favorite Buffy the Vampire Slayer characters.

There have been a myriad of fosters as well, but I've named way too many to go through them all.

Walter, Claire, Floyd & Albert. All kitties 

• I've got a baby kitten ..... Lil'Gurl & then I've got a male cat that is prolly a year old. His name is crazy legs becuz he got hurt about month ago. Abd I think broke his leg or legs or his back sumthin is definitely wrong he walks but not very good. And then we got the daddy cat big old!!! And then last but not least my sister has a dog and his name is dingo she called him ding ding ding ding!!!!

Parkway was picked up as a kitten (with ringworm) by Animal Control on the Parkway, the highway that goes through downtown. Forbes was trapped at a home on Forbes Avenue. St Nick was living outdoors at the time, he went missing for three weeks, and miraculously returned on Christmas Day. Hagen had one eye removed and is named after Hagen von Tronje, a tragic one-eyed hero in the German equivalent to the Iliad. Hines Ward was named after the Pittsburgh Steelers football player who announced his retirement from just before I left the house to pick up my Hines from the clinic the day he was had TNR surgery. 

Brandi is our queen, 13 year old "bully breed" found running in the road on Sunday morning 2 weeks after our Homer crossed over the rainbow bridge just short of 17--we believe he sent her...She has been the ambassador of her breed for our family and is truly a "daddy's girl"--we started out with "Brownie" but knew she was so much more--when her name is written there is always a heart over the "i".

Newman is our nearly 10 year old "bully breed"--he was adopted from the then local pound at 7 weeks old--as a "gray" he had piercing blue eyes as a pup. This was around the time of the passing of Paul Newman...?need I say more?

Gus is a hound dog--?Fox hound vs Coon hound--he was another road puppy--no chip, no collar--full of worms and fleas--Now after losing his "friends" he is a welcome part of our family. Gus just seemed like the "country name" he needed.

Roxy (her shelter name) is another hound--most likely a Coon hound--she is a "foster failure". I brought her home to help her gain weight as she was stressed and wasting away in the shelter. Being the princess she is she cuddled with my husband during the 2015 college basketball tournament. I knew she was staying when my son called Gus and her, "Romeo and Juliet" and my husband voiced she could only go "if she went to a good home.." He had also started singing Sting's "Roxanne" to her....

Elmer may be our next failure--Coon hound who suffers from severe anxiety and as a result was felt to have "food aggression"--failed 2 adoptions with the last resulting in a "bite". Interestingly I had suggested his name when he came into the shelter--sounded like another country name to me....He is a very sweet boy--the above hounds and he are now known as the "three amigos"--thank goodness we live in the country!!

Coconut is my emotional support dog and my first dog. We moved to Wisconsin from Hawaii after a terrible car wreck left me unable to do my job to the point where I could afford to live. My son is here, hence this frozen tundra. When my doctor suggested a dog I laughed at him. I didn't do dogs. 

After over 2 years of headaches, panic attacks, PTSD, inability to drive, we decided to get a dog. Coconut has given me my life back and I am so grateful to my little Shepherd/Mix rescue.

My then five-year-old grandson told me we were getting a dog because we had a fence. Yeah, no. He also said the dog's name would be Coconut. Why? "Because his mommy and daddy are from Hawaii. What are you gonna name him, Pineapple?" Over a year later Coconut came into our lives.

The next dog already has a name. Mai Tai! Created at Don the Beachcomber in Hawaii. What could be cuter and more Hawaiian?  

#General

1. Right now I have 1 cat, I took him to keep him safe.the love I have for Big boy,  is something else. But he is so smart to be under a year old.i would have a few more, but my apt is small.

Wicket is my 4-y-old tabby DSH. He showed up on my doorstep as a tiny kitten,  announced that he would be staying, thank you, and promptly developed a fierce romance with my big German Sherpherd. He loved to arch into my hand, or arch into my Shepherd's chin, reminding me of a croquet wicket - hence, his name. He is my Zen cat - even-tempered, sensible, supervisor of balance and sanity in my (currently) 3-cat household. When Wicket and I lost our dog to a heartbreaking terminal illness, Wicket was beyond inconsolable. He obviously needed a special friend, and so Willin' entered our lives. Willin' is a Lynxpoint Siamese/Snowshoe, adopted from Siamese Rescue as a cheeky adolescent and so-named because she was (and is) willing to attempt absolutely anything! She's my aerial artist, performing death-defying acrobatic feats on a routine basis, simply because they make life interesting. Willin' has become quite the little diva in her 3 years - moody, bossy and yet adored by Wicket and my 3rd cat, Metu. Metu is my 2-yr-old Flamepoint Siamese/Snowshoe, who was struggling as a youngster to deal with "captivity" at a local shelter, refusing to eat/drink/interact at all with others. As soon as he arrived in our home, he transformed into a bundle of energy, speeding through the house while chatting up a storm and insisting on being in the thick of absolutely every event and activity. Nothing goes down without Metu! So each of my kitties named themselves via their early behaviors, and in all cases, their "baby names" have been prophetic of their wonderful evolving personalities. 

I have 2 cats Boi and Peanut. Boi is actually a girl but she sisters name is Georgia, so Boi George. (we thought it was funny). And peanut got his name in the shelter. Him and his siblings were peanut, butter, and jelly. 

I also have 2 dogs. Shenzie and Waffles. Shenzie like from the Lion King. And Waffles, well because it's funny.

My dog was named "Savage" when he arrived at the rescue. This was not helpful in finding someone to adopt "Savage." so the rescue started calling him "Elvis." Now Elvis is 2 1/2 years old, so changing names is not ideal. So when I fostered Elvis for two weeks prior to the adoption, he did not respond well to Elvis but did respond well to Savage. So as a child I loved the comic/pulp fiction character who was a fit scientist hero called "Doc Savage." So I started calling Elvis Doc Savage which he responded to well. I would shorten it to "Doc" every third time or so. Aand eventually just started calling him Doc.  Now he answers to Doc but his name is Doc Savage. 

Iggy. His name at the Shelter was Skip.

He did not respond to that name at all

or names sounding like it. Now he knows his name is Iggy and responds very well.

Copper who is a very coppery long haired domestic kitty and Ziggy who is a black short haired kitty and who thinks he is a dog sometimes...he likes to fetch his kitty toys and is very talkative...Copper is the laid back one