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Night Elf
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I was thinking this morning about the names of my pets. They confuse people. My female dog is Bandit. My male dog is Marley. When I take them to the groomer, I say hints like 'Here, take my little man first' and then 'Here's my good little girl.' It wasn't our intention to give them confusing names. It just worked out that way. Anyone else with confusing pet names? or heck, just to have a fun thread, what is the name of your pet? I can't remember the names of all my past pets so I can't remember if any of them had funny names. I seem to recall our chinchilla had a funny name but my memory is bad.

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Nothing very confusing, but one of our dogs is Dusty and years ago we had a cat named Smudge.  And people asked if we were developing a theme with pet names, or if their names reflected the state of our house.  :lol:

 

(The people who asked that knew that I was (am) a fairy meticulous house keeper, so it was all in good fun.)

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Our dog is a Scottish breed so we found Maisy on a list of Scottish baby names and it was perfect.  If she were male I was pulling for Haggis but there was strong opposition.

 

A friend who has Scottish ancestry and who has been involved in Scottish societies and whatnot for many years named her rescued kitty Haggis. :-)

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one of our rats now is called Bunny :) She came with that name & we kept it. She's very soft & velveteen. The other rat was Rizzo but we call him David (the 10th doctor ...)

cat - Rachel

rats - Lennier, Sinclair & Marcus (the Babylon 5 boys LOL)

My dogs are Daisy (malamute/gsd)  & Darwin (english setter). We named them.  They have nicknames. Daisy is Days, Miss Daisy, Lazy Daisy. Darwin is Darwin, Dork, Mama's Boy, & "Seriously?"

 

Bear is Bear. He came with that name & I couldn't possibly change it. He gets called Mr Bear, Old Man, Pooh Bear, & Sill Old Bear

In keeping with my Darwin theme,  I keep wanting to name my next dog Beagle.  Esp if it's not a Beagle LOL

And Pilot. I want a dog named Pilot. I hope the next big hairy thing will be Pilot.

 

 

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Now I'm reminded of my brother and SIL's cat, who showed up as a stray kitten. They decided to keep it and started calling the kitty Lucy. Upon taking Lucy to the vet they were informed that perhaps they might want to consider changing "her" name to Louie. :lol:

My husband had a kitten named Oscar. Turned out she was Oscaretta.

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Nothing very confusing, but one of our dogs is Dusty and years ago we had a cat named Smudge.  And people asked if we were developing a theme with pet names, or if their names reflected the state of our house.  :lol:

 

(The people who asked that knew that I was (am) a fairy meticulous house keeper, so it was all in good fun.)

 

We had a cat named Smudge years and years ago.  He looked like he had a smudged mustache.  

 

Our male dog is white and fluffy (3/4 bichon frise and 1/4 cocker spaniel). He weighs about 30 lbs.

Our female dog is a black lab.  She weighs about 60 lbs.  Everyone gets them backwards.   He's definitely the alpha male, and she is the submissive one, so it's kind of funny due to their looks and size.

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My friend's animals were all other animal names.  Their dog was Bear, the cat was Bunny, they had a bunch of horses and one of them was named after another animal.  

 

We ended up doing that kind of accidentally at first and then decided to stick with it.

 

So, we had a guinea pig named Bessie (because her coloring reminded me of a cow) and another named Coconut (because my daughter named her after the American Girl dog). We now have a cat named Piggers (because the rescue foster home from whom we adopted him called him that in honor or how much he ate as a kitten) and another cat named Raven (because she is almost solid black and likes to sit on our shoulders -- again she came to us from the rescue with that name) and a dog named Matilda (whom I named after the cat who is traditionally in residence at the Algonquin Hotel in NYC).

 

My daughter, who is now living on her own and can't have pets, is already planning what she might name pets she acquires in the future that would follow the family tradition.

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I don't know about confusing, but I do try to avoid ordinary.  My old lady sister kitties came named: Zena and Zoe.  Then DS adopted a black cat that he boringly named Shadow.  He also has a frog named......yep, you guessed it.  Kermit.  He did redeem himself, though, when he named his hamster Spaz. :D  DD has a rabbit named Billy.  Billy Bunny. hehe..

 

As for former pets, I had a black cat named Raven (think Edgar Allen Poe) and a tuxedo cat named Lestat (Anne Rice).  Then I had a rat named Mina (Bram Stoker) and a dog named Akasha (Anne Rice again).  I have a thing for vampires and horror fiction. :D

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Now I'm reminded of my brother and SIL's cat, who showed up as a stray kitten. They decided to keep it and started calling the kitty Lucy. Upon taking Lucy to the vet they were informed that perhaps they might want to consider changing "her" name to Louie. :lol:

A friend of mine growing up got a kitten that she was sure was a girl. She name the kitty Sugar Plum Fairy. After the first vet visit, she was found to be he and his name shortened to just Sugar. Still a sort of confusing name for a male.

 

My neighbors have a female dog named Parker. I just can't think of a girl named Parker for some reason.

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When I was young we had a cat named Pickle Purrpot. Believe it or not, it was my dad who named her.

 

We had a cat named Pickles when I was growing up.  We were brainstorming names, and my brother threw out Olive.  Well, I hate olives, so I responded, "Ew!  If you're going to go with food, at least use pickles," and it just sorta stuck.

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My Shih Tzu's name is FuXi. It's Chinese, and sounds like sushi, with and F. I gets lots of giggles from the groomers. I took her to the vet once, and the tech came out and said "I can't call this name out loud in the waiting room." My husband did warn me that people wouldn't know how to read it. When I picked the name, he said, "You DO know what people are going to call her, right?" 😆

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Ours are pretty boring.  Our cat's name is Chance.  Dh was outside one night and heard one of those sounds from a cat that sounded very unnatural.  He found the poor little guy in a bush at the business across the street, and he had a wound that went to the bone on his leg.  The vet the next day said "He never would have survived if you hadn't found him.  He wouldn't have had a chance."  Thus the name..

 

Our dogs are Sunnie (female) and Dakota (male).  Now that I think about it...my friend had a Dakota too and it was a female.

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We have a big orange cat named Ginger Pye and just like the dog Ginger Pye in the book of the same name, our Ginger is also a boy.  I have given up trying to explain that our boy Ginger is named after another boy (a dog) named Ginger.  We had a neighbor (older man) who never could understand that our Ginger was a boy so I stopped reminding him and just let him call Ginger a "good girl".

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The house where I cleaned once had a large grumpy looking male cat called Lizzie. Just felt really weird to use his name...it was like...lizzie is at the door, should I let him in?

Ds had a male anole named Lizzy (he was five when he aquired him). He also named two of the hens Warrior and Captain (he was twelve when they came along- no excuse).

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We have a dog named Selah, which (in Biblical musical terms) means something like, "Pause and calmly think about that."  She was named before her being was very developed, she was very young when we got her.  Turns out she's the most uncalm, unpausing, unable to think about anything mammal creature that ever existed.  Hyper, hyper, hyper crazy nut. People told us she would calm down after a year or two.  It's been almost six!  Still waiting.  She's a sweetie pie though.  It's my oldest daughter, whose she is, that she loves more than anything in this world -- and said daughter just moved out.  When she stops by for a visit, boy wowdy.  Watch out. 

 

Our cat is Mira ~ I have no idea where the name came from other than the fact that I was looking in the rearview mirra on our way home after picking her little kitten self up and out came "Her name is Mira." 

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Our two dogs are named Yukon and Kobuk after the rivers.  We got them as pups and they would regularly flood the laundry room while we were working on housebreaking, so the names came to mind pretty naturally.

 

The cat has a name - DD20 named him Rex when she picked him out at the shelter.  Everyone else refers to him as The Cat and His Royal Highness.

 

It doesn't matter actually what you call him - he doesn't answer anyway.

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Dd's Cocker is named Kit Kat. She calls her Kitty. We have had a male Couscous, male Oh Henry (Henry), Chocolate Bunny (Bunny), Sufganiyot (Suffy), Rocky Road (Rocky), Evan, Phineas, Jack the Jack Russell and the kids have already stated that if we ever have a female Jack Russell come through here it will be named Jill. I know I'm leaving some pups out of here, but those are what comes to mind right away.

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I didn't give the history of my pet names. My female Beagle mix is Bandit. The rescue people thought she looked like a Bandit but since that was a boys name, they called her Bandi. When we got her home, ds didn't like Bandi and wanted Bandit. My male dachshund was also a rescue dog. They had him named Batman because of his ears. There was no way I could call a pet Batman so we renamed him. Oldest dd chose Marley after Bob Marley. I have no clue why!

 

I asked dd about her chinchilla. When we got it, we thought it was a male so she named him Mr. T. Then we found out it was female and she was renamed to Raisin.

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Nothing confusing, but maybe boring.  One is "Kitty" and the other is "Mittens".  Growing up my cat was named Kitty and even with names I find myself just saying, "Kitty kitty...here kitty kitty".  So why not Kitty?  The shelter place named her "Rita".  That just doesn't really roll off the tongue.  And then the shelter named Mittens, "Bogey".  Bogey?!  What kind of name is that?  He's a tuxedo cat with big white paws.  My younger kid chose the name.  I was going to name him after some famous violinist, but I figured Mittens works.  I call him Mitty Bitty. 

 

 

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Nothing confusing.

 

Smokie for our 19-year old female kitty. I don't remember if the shelter named her, or my mother. I think it was my mother, though. She's grey.

 

Tigger for my baby boy that passed away 2 years ago at age 10. We brought him home at 7 months and he was a bouncy little guy. And a goof.

 

Lily for our 9-year old girl. She was originally named Hallie, after the Halliwell sisters from Charmed, but it never really stuck. Lily did.

 

I did have a Hamster named Snuggles who hated people. And two parakeets, Cloudy (blue and white male) and Zee (yellow and white female). Zee's name was eventually changed to Sunshine.

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And then the shelter named Mittens, "Bogey". Bogey?! What kind of name is that? He's a tuxedo cat with big white paws. My younger kid chose the name. I was going to name him after some famous violinist, but I figured Mittens works. I call him Mitty Bitty.

Oh I knew a dog Bogey! Some people thought it was a golfing reference but it was a reference to Humphrey Bogart. I like it for handsome critters.

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