What's in a name?

W

Whitney

Forums Regular
So I was just wondering where the name(s) for your pets come from? Do they have special meaning?

Are you the kind of person that already has a name picked out before you picked out your dog? Or are you the kind of person that has to meet the dog first, and determine a name based on personality? Or based on the dog's looks?
 
We are not very original with our pet names. Our little mutt we call JP which is short for Jinglepot because we were visiting my uncle when we got her and he lives on Jinglepot road. Mikos had his name when we got him and we liked it and felt he should keep it. Brie was actually Blanche when we got her but my family wasn't happy with that so we chose another 'B' name. I'm not sure if my husbands vote for that name was based on the fact that brie is his favourite cheese! In that case I guess it would make her our 'cheese dog'!
 
Our first dog Bentley was named before we brought him home (we brought him home a 7 months). We liked the name, so we kept it.

For our other two pets, I decided to go with a theme. Since I already had Bentley (and his registered name is the name of an old racing car that Bentley makes), I went with more car names.

My cat's name is Bimmer (as in BMW) and my other dog is Lexi (Lexus) and her registered name is Lexus' slogan.

I pick the name out ahead of time--but that's because I'm choosing along with the theme. I already know what my next dog's name will be...and don't even know when we'll get another dog! :lol:
 
We brought Edan home when he was 7 months old and his littermate sister at 3.5 years old. Both dogs were the breeder's show prospects from their litter so they were already named/registered.

Edan's original name was Pete (Pistol Pete on his registration). When I first met him (at 6 months old) he simply did not strike me as a 'Pete' so, while we waited to bring him home, DH and I went name hunting. I didn't know exactly what I wanted but I wanted something Scottish. DH found Edan, pronounced in Scottish Gaelic as AY-den, which means Fire. Since we were hoping he'd be a fast agility dog, this worked. We later changed his AKC registration name from Pistol Pete to Celtic Fire to match better with his call name.

CJ, she's a much easier story. Edan's and CJ's entire litter was named with a Wild West theme. CJ, which is her call name, is short for her registered name, Calamity Jane. When we brought her home the breeder asked us (OK, actually told us) we couldn't change her name. That was find with us because it really fit her personality and we actually LOVED her name from when she was a pup.
 
My dogs always seem to come with a name...the downfall of adopting adult dogs, I guess. I did get to rename our foster dogs - one came nameless as a stray and quickly became Finnegan. The other came as Shane but I didn't like that name so he became Seamus. I figured that was close enough to avoid too much confusion.

Clancy's original name was Cody, but my mom renamed him after the Irish song - Clancy Lowered the Boom. Not that he lives up to that song, my little coward :lol:

Somehow in there we ended up with an Italian cat - Angelo! I tried renaming him as "Finn McCat" but my kids just kept calling him Angelo so I gave up...:lol:
 
Names

When I got Shadow he was six months old and already named.The breeder was calling him pup pup and I knew I was changing ti.Seeing he followed me everywhere I called him Shadow.His registered name is Mach Asharon's Winter Fire and I think the breeder got it for Stpehen King's book.Had I already know about agility then it would have been different.Stin was named Crikey after Steve Irvin.The whole litter went with the Steve Irwin theme.I did not care for the name so went with something agility.So after some thinking went with Sting and his registered name is Dremacatcher's Direct Hit.My next puppy will be if it is from Shadow's breeder it will be Asharon's Secret Weapon.
 
I got Gus from our local shelter when he was 8 weeks old (approx.) he had been picked up as a stray. At the shelter they were calling him Murray, but he just didn't seem like a Murray, so my daughter did some research and came up with Aonghus( the old Gaelic spelling of the more modern "Angus") and one of it's meanings was 'one strength' and I figured he had to be a pretty tough little guy to have been through being a stray at such a young age, so Aonghus he became and it fits him to a 'T'.
 
Justice was born 4th of July weekend. The litter names where based on that theme. Justice's original name was Independence(Indy). I do not want my obedience dog to be names Independence!:lol: So I changed it to Justice. His registered name is Code of Honor based on the Marine Core honor code.

Ember wa a a feisty little pupy. She would just stare at you and dare you to make her do something. She looked so calm and laid back but then would explode into a fit at the drop of the hat. Since an ember is a piece of ash(she looks like that) cool on the outside and hot in the middle. It seemed like a good name. Her litter name was Snoopy so not her. Her registered name in Fire N' Ice. Goes with the same theme and she has a black spot and a white spot on her rump that are her ying and yang symbol. She just really has that polar opposite theme going on.

Diva well Diva was named that because I went over to help my friend glue the litters ears. Her brother and sister were angels and Diva stall we say was not. The whole time her littermates were being worked on she was trying to get in our faces and when it was her turn she threw a royal fit. I think I blurted out in frustration is I was picked glue out of her mane and she was howling . "what a prima donna" so her registered name is Prima Donna and her call name is Diva.
 
Thanks everyone for sharing your stories. I've been thinking about names a lot as I begin thinking about getting my own puppy.

The only pets (besides hampsters and guinea pigs) that I had a direct influence in naming were the two kittens we adopted from the humane society (one which would become my parents cat and one that would be so attached to me that she demanded to come with me to college and become my cat). Their names are Baloo and Bagheera. They both came with those names and we never changed them. Those names are from the Jungle Book but they male characters, and it's a little strange because both the cats are female. But the names kind of fit based on the cat's color. Bagheera (the panther) is black, and Baloo (the gray bear) is gray. My Mom calls Baloo Lulu, so that really became her name.
 
We named our family yellow lab "Sonny Boy" because he was the only 'son' my parents had :wink2: That and if he had been female it would have been Sunshine or Sunny for short!

My sister actually named Riley for us. We wanted a Celtic name for him and I was trying out all of my favorites. I asked everyone for ideas of Irish/Celtic names and my sister picked out Riley. It ended up being between Riley and Seamus. For his registered name, we were originally going to have him be "Baba O'Rilly" for the Who song, but it just didn't fit very well with him. Then we realized that we always commented about him getting all riled up and it sounded like a great agility name for him. We also did not want to use his breeder's name, so we mixed my husband's (Q) and my (Bella) nicknames together, getting Quebella. His full name ends up being Quebella All Riled Up. Riley approved, of course!
 
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