Pet Rant

[DesignFox]

The only pet name I truly and honesstly hate is "Baby." It's not a baby goddammit it's your pet! The goo-goo ga-ga cuteness of it sickens me! (I think I've met a few too many people who had a pet named "Baby") *barf*

Our pets have always been named for whatever seemed to suit them best...

I had goldfish named Storm and Wolverine because A) I was really into X-Men at the time and B) their colors sorta looked like the characters outfits.

My Chameleons were named Diablo and Takhisis...the first after the video game (he had the horns! it was cool!) and the second after an evil goddess in the Dragonlance book series.

I've had an alligator lizard named Rex...cause he reminded us of a dinosaur.

We had a Blue and Gold Macaw named Broadway- I think she came with that name... sadly we had to sell her to a trainer because no one but my dad could handle her.

I had a Betta fish I named: Gamma Beta Zeta

Oh geez, and then there was the 20+ hermit crabs we had at one point... they had all sorts of interesting names, most of which I can't remember. I remember one that was missing a couple legs (we bought him that way) that was my Dad's absolute favorite...he called it Gimpy (sorry, my dad's a bit rough around the edges- no offense intended).

I've had a series of anoles, an iguana and a bunch of other goldfish, but I don't rememeber what we called them...I was really little.

Currently we have a puppy who Mom named Sebastian. I don't know why, but it fits him.

And once he is fully weaned, we will have an African Blue Front Parrot. Since they live for 80 years, I will be inheriting it. I picked the initials DL- for Dad's Legacy. I thought it would be fun to tell people I'm inheriting my father's Legacy.

I think one of the funniest horse names I ever heard at a showgrounds was the name "I Said He's Not For Sale."

[ThePhoneGoddess]

My current pets have decent names. My big black cat is Boo. He came with that name when I adopted him and I decided to keep it. "Boo the black cat" seemed fitting.

I had a roomie who had a black kitty named Boo. Her full name was "Boo Boo Kitty Fuck", from a scene in the film "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back".

[Boozy]

I've known more than a few cats in my lifetime named Boo. Most of them black. It's a cute name, so I can understand the popularity.

[Xanthina]

My Nana's poodle is named Heidie

My parent's Dog is Rescue. She came with that name. We got her from e shelter, but she had that name from the previous owner. What's really funny is when the dog would decide to bolt down the road. Running down the road yelling "RESCUE!!!" gets you some odd looks.

My sister's semi-demon cat is named Panther. She lives up to her name, and I have the scars to prove it. She's mellowed with age, but as a baby kitten she would attack my hands while I slept.

Sunkist was a calico cat with a sunny yellow patch on her face.

Muffin... well... I was 2 when I named our smoky grey kitten Muffin. Little did I know that she was going to turn calico when she lost that baby fuzz.

[Dreamstalker]

When we first acquired Sooty, my mom and I had to come up with creative ways of latching our bedroom doors lest we wake up with her gnawing on us. I wanted to name her Gozer, that idea was shot down however.

[LadyBarbossa]

My nephew is 16 and slowly coming out of his cliche naming slump. We got him his first dog when he was 6, a black lab mix puppy. He called it Air Bud, but later changed it to Buddy. How original. He had another lab mix for a while that he called Skip because he had just been given My Dog Skip on tape. Skip turned out to be a schizo that ripped into our sheep and tried snapping at us one too many times, and we had to have him put to sleep.

A stray Cocker Spaniel came to us one day, started following him around, apparently vowed to never let him out of her sight, and he called her . . . Lady. She was a beautiful little dog though, appeared to be purebred, and no one ever did come looking for her, she had no microchip either. She was a lovely little black and tan. The only thing 'wrong' with her was that she had a large cataract in one eye.

He seems to be picking up my trend as of late though; I'll admit that I tend to name my animals after movie/TV/book characters, though I have a few exceptions.

My Border Collie: Murray (RIP *sniffle*) - Paul and Jamie Buchman's dog from Mad About You

My Border Collie/Terrier mix: Strider - Lord of the Rings character

Shetland Ram #1: Bobo - If you misspell Bobo, it says Boob. I just thought it was funny.

Shetland Ram #2: (Son of Bobo) Mumble, like the Happy Feet character. But it did turn out to fit him because he makes a mumbling noise when he eats his food

Kitty cat: Mort - like Mort Rainey of Secret Window. This guy showed up on the doorstep and he was just incredibly quirky. Nowhere near as screwed up as his namesake, but again, it fits.

Paint colt: Sawyer - LOST is my favorite show. I don't like the Sawyer character *that* much, but it does make a nice horse name, and the personalities match.

Most people, especially my sister, ask me why I call my pets such weird names. A fact that makes me proud *beams* She thinks I should have called Strider 'Spot' because he has . . . white spots.

When our mare was born 9 years ago, lots of neighbors had been watching her poor mother swell to unbelievable size and came to look at the new baby. We were hard put for a name, since our pre-picked choices of Snickers and Tardy (she was a month late) just didn't fit her at all. People gave us brilliant suggestions like 'Star' or 'Socks'. Three guesses about what sort of markings she has, and the first two doesn't count. In the end, my Mom came up with 'Sweet Tart', because she could be sweet like her sire, and kind of sour and tarty, like her dam. Also, the dam's name was Candy, and we thought it was a cute little continuation/spin-off of that.

Nephew, meanwhile, named his horse Walker. It seems a little unimaginative because he's half Tennessee Walking Horse, but it's more after the Chuck Norris character than just 'Der, we gots a walkin' horse so we's gonna call him Walker'. His original name was Laredo, but my Mom can't pronounce that for beans and nephew shot down my idea of just shortening it to Larry. Come on, what would have been cuter than a horse named Larry? LOL. But Walker it is. Nephew has also named a lamb Mace after several Star Wars characters, and another sheep is Cindel, after the little girl in the Ewok movies. He says if next year's foal is a boy, he's going to name it Wolverine.

Boo, I guess, is a little bit of a common/cliche kind of name. I think everyone has had a Boo at one point or another. We have a Shetland ewe by that name, since she was so incredibly human-shy and skittish when we first got her.

But who am I to talk? When I was little, I was pretty straightforward. If the hamster was the runt of the little, I called it Runt. If it was a Shetland pony, its name was Shetland. The only one we can't figure out is my ducks. We used to catch ducklings and keep them for a while when I was little, and every last one of them was General. We don't know where, at three years old, I would have come up with the name General, but I did. One of my Generals was gay. . .

Sorry about being long-winded, but I love names, especially the more uncommon ones. It's annoying when people call their horses Star and Blaze, or their cats/dogs Puss and Buddy. But I find it equally tiresome when every other new human baby born is Chris or Katie.

[AFPheonix]

We've done a lot of people names for barn names for the horses.
The first foal crop consisted of Mitchell, Audrey (she's elegant, like Audrey Hepburn ), Bonnie (never let mom name anything), and Max (sister's coworker's daughter named him).
The next year we had Ellis (L.S. or Little Shit) and Cooper.
the year after that we had Skagen (pronounced Skein, named by mom's exchange student) and Willow.
Last year we had a designer theme, so we had Calvin (Klein), Oscar (De la Renta), and Aino (named by mom's exchange student last year, this is apparently a Finnish glassmaker).

Besides them we have Jet (mom's black horse, who used to move quite fast when he was young), Skye, Holly, Goldy, and Granddolly (we knew one of her daughters before we had her, and her name was Dolly too. We added the 'grand' to indicate which one we were talking about).
We had a different Goldy for awhile, but she was so emaciated and twitchy when we got her we renamed her Twiggy. It seemed to fit.
We tend to come up with registered names and barn names separately, although occasionally one does inform the other. For example, the horse I grew up on was named Cascadian Lad, we called him Lad. Another was named Friar Tuck Boomer, we called him Tuck.
For Cooper we tried to get Lil' Deuce Coupe for his name but it's taken already
Jet came with Tango as his barn name as his registered name is Tango Azul, but mom didn't care for it so she renamed him.
Leiloo, my sister's Duck Toller was so named because of her red coat.
Cookie (smooth coated fox terrier) got her moniker after we got her because, well, she's a tough cookie. Apparently her previous owners named her Tinkerbell, but that's a pretty gaggy name and doesn't fit her one bit.
Lilly (Toy Fox terrier) had parents named Daphne and Niles, so we kept the theme going when we got her from the breeder.
Nestle was a surprise puppy out of Cookie (both are for sure spayed now. Christ, no more puppies!), and it seemed like a good feminine cookie sort of name. If she was a boy I was gunning for Keebler for a name.
Chompy the barn cat earned his name for sinking his teeth into my BIL when he was still pretty feral. It fits still...
Hammie got his name partly from a sunday comic strip and also for the fact that he's half Manx and his tail has a little piggy curl to it.
Loki is my husband's cat. He likes Norse mythology, and Loki is a pretty spastic cat.

We've got 2 or 3 foals next year, we may do a comic theme. I think Amos would be a cute name for a colt, and we're still stewing on registered names besides the one I came up with on last page (providing my sister will go for it)

[IDrinkaRum]

My mom's first cat was named Ashley. My parents' current cat is named Abby.

My sister's cat is Shelby. When she was married to her first husband, they had a Golden Retriever named Brady.

My 2 cats are Darwin and Kyra. Darwin 'cos I like the name (plus his "wrestling name" is Darwinius Steele ) and Kyra 'cos she's an orange and white calico and hubs thought that was the chicks name from Thundercats (of course it's not) and Kyra's a name from ST: DS9. And since we both like ST: DS9, we kept the name.

[protege]

Let's see now...my current kitties are named Sally and Baxter. I can't take credit for the names, since they came from a shelter. Before they arrived, I had Snow. She also came from a shelter, and was named because she was white. (What is it with every white cat being named Snow, or Snowflake?) Before Snow, there was Kitty. I didn't call him that--Grandma did. At the time, Kitty was sleeping in my workshop at night. Something got in there, and slit his throat from ear to ear She took him to the vet, and when the vet asked his name...she said that she "hadn't had him long enough to name him, and had just been calling him Kitty..."

[Lace Neil Singer]

On unoriginal horse names; beat this. At the riding stable I used to go to, there was a fjord horse called, get this, Fjord. XD Other horses I've known and their names:

Dougal. Learned to ride on him; he was called Dougal after the Magic Roundabout character cuz he had a really long mane and tail.

Jamie. Already named when he arrived at the stable.

Russet. A chestnut. Not very inspiring. Should really have been called Bitey. X_x

Tammy. Chestnut pony with flat withers. Named after girls' clothes shop.

Babs. Already named before arrival; was named after previous owner's wife.

Quill. Small horse/large pony. Dark brown. His sister, Teal, was also at the stable; they were given rhyming names for some cutesy reason or another.

Tuska. Palomino cob. Not a clue.

Ebony. Black all over mare with horrible PMS.

Rolo. Chestnut gelding, seriously chunky. Again, not a clue. XD

Bill. Nickname that stuck; he was nicknamed "Basher Bill" for obvious reasons, but it seemed to fit him so it stayed.

Echo. Brown mare. Not a clue.

Milly. Ex racehorse, had a ridiculously long flowery name, can't remember it but it was a Mary Sue name. She was given Milly cuz otherwise people would get jaw ache trying to call her by her racehorse name.

Smokey. Dapple grey cob. Go on, have a guess. XD


If I won the lottery and was able to buy a horse, I'd probably pick a song for a name. XD

[Xanthina]

When we first acquired Sooty, my mom and I had to come up with creative ways of latching our bedroom doors lest we wake up with her gnawing on us. I wanted to name her Gozer, that idea was shot down however.

At the time... my mom was makeing my sister keep the kitten in our shared room, because she was afraid the older cat might hurt the kitten. The cats got along well, but those two months where hard for me. I still sleep with my hands under my pillow.

[Dreamstalker]

After we had to get her spayed, Sooty would always respond to the name Gozer (later Vigo when she started to get really grumpy) but never her original name.

[IDrinkaRum]

Lace Neil Singer - I snorted when I saw one of the horses you know/knew was named Babs. My daughter & 2 cats just looked at me like deer caught in the headlights.

Reason being - I know someone called Babette - known her for like 20 years, I usually call her Babs for short! Oh boy ... sorry *ashamed* Just found it amusing. I'll go back and hide out again.

[Fire_on_High]

answer to so many variations of his real name...

Some of ours are like that...the girls only really answer to 2, their PROPER names (Kelli and Paws) and one nickname each (Foofybutt and B*tch), but the boys....

Eragon - Inky, Skinny, Shyboy, Little Guy...and my mother insists on calling him Schlumpy

Murloc - Murfuzz, Murfin, Little Fin, Fin Fin, Murb*stard, Murfur....and my mother insists on calling him Merle.

I guess calling her lap fungus "B*tch" kinda makes up for the fact she won't call our boys by their right names, ever...for one, she answers to it and for two, she EARNED it...swatting at Eragon every time he tries to go into his "I'm a tiny baby kitty" mode with her.

[AdminAssistant]

So BoyThing may be getting a cat from his sister (they found out his neice is extremely allergic to cats the hard way). They named the cat Daisy. When they took Daisy to get spayed, they realized that instead they needed to get him neutered.

His sister refused to change the name ("but he knows his name!"). BoyThing is somewhat opposed to the idea of calling the boy cat Daisy. I told him it really doesn't matter what you call a cat, it's not like it will come when you call or anything. But the poor kitty may be somewhat confused about his orientation.