The Naming of Pets

Margaret Maron 

According to T.S. Eliot in Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, which formed the basis of the Broadway play Cats,

            "The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,

            It isn't just one of your holiday games . . ."

Actually, it does become a sort of game, doesn't it?  In Southern Discomfort, I have a running joke about Deborah's Aunt Zell trying out different names for her new puppy.  After experimenting with Roman emperors (Caesar and Pompey) and TV news anchors (Cronkite and Brinkley), she winds up taking Dwight's suggestion, Pork Chop, even though she doesn't know the story behind that suggestion.

As a Southerner, I have known several pets with double names: Cubbie Lee was a dog and Gilbert Ann was a squirrel that turned out to be female.  As an adult, I have lived with a dog named Mackindoo and cats named Skimbleshanks, Katisha, and Bitsy Mott.  Giacomino Schwarzekatze was a trilingual Siamese that we acquired at a NATO base in Italy from a German couple.

But before that?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friends of mine are giving their grandson a cute little golden Labradoodle puppy for his sixth birthday.  While he waits for the puppy to reach ten weeks, the child has been trying out different names.  The current favorite is Sunshine, "but I'll call her Sunny."

Which has led another friend to observe:  "This is the tough part about letting little kids name their pets—why millions of moms, myself included, have ended up with goldfish named Goldy. (Probably only exceeded by moms with pet bunnies or kittens named Fluffy.)" 

                                                                

"I was nine," she says, "when I got my first all-yours pet, a parakeet. I named it Kennedy. He hadn't been elected yet. I think it must be a good sign for candidates if kids are naming pets after them. At least, I never met a pet named Nixon."

At six, my first cat was white and came during winter, so of course I named her Snowflake.  Her son was a soft all-over gray and answered to Smokey.  (Not that he actually answered. No cat of ours ever deigned to respond to its name.)

Colors and markings trigger names for most children:  Blackie, Red, Blue, Patches, Spot, Stars. (But in all fairness, must add that I have since learned the child awaiting his puppy picked that name "because there's a song about you are my Sunshine, my only Sunshine.  You make me happy when skies are gray.") 

What about you?  Did you get to choose your pets' names when you were a kid?  Have you become more imaginative as an adult?