How Do You Pick Your Pup´s Name?

2812 Views 56 Replies 45 Participants Last post by MaddiesMom, Jun 5, 2009

MartyH

Discussion Starter · May 31, 2009

As much as I love reading, teaching and advising on Dog training, behavior and nutrition one thing that I have a personal interest in is how people choose their pup´s names.

for instance when I brought my pup she used to bounce like Tigger from Winnie the Pooh and so the kids decided she should be called Tigger, I wasn´t overly keen on the idea at first, but eventually it grew on me and the name stuck, then to add to the humour my dog walking pal was a fan of Only Fools and Horses and named his Alsatian Trigger.

You can imagine the looks and the smiles when we were in the fields calling Tigger and Trigger!

What makes you name your dog, and how do you go about finding the name?

I look forward to your responses!

1 - 20 of 57 Posts

ownedbypups2010

· #2 · May 31, 2009

oh this one is fun...

Thunder was picked because he is a pure black lab with a white lighting bolt stripe down his chest, and so when he would run thru the house he would sound like a thunder storm, LOL, point of interest out of all his nails he has one pure white one that has not changed since birth

.

Cinnimon ( AKA cinni) she was rescued so we decided to give her the cinni name based strictly on her color.( she is my avatar), she has got that cinnimon sugar mix color to her. so, cinni it was.

my mom has 3 dogs and she named them Butch ( Cassidy), Billy ( The Kid) and Sundance.. mmmmmm, wonder where she got those names, and let me tell you they fit!!

reinawolf360

· #3 · May 31, 2009

i chose my dog's name from a song, popular in the 1960's Jefferson Airplane wrote a song called White Rabbit, about Alice in Wonderland....and other trippy things. I fell in love with the name and gave it to my dog that i have now, my next dog an American Pit bull Terrier is named King after the Popular rapper of today T.I.'s Album. When i was younger my dad named a dog after his favorite band Judas Priest. I guess i can say it runs in the blood lines to name the dog after music. My mama names her pets mostly after movie characters, prefurably Disney names, I didn't catch on to it though i did name one rodent after the famous Tony Montana in the movie Scarface. That is all i can remember from naming any pet i had from a movie.

FourIsCompany

· #4 · May 31, 2009

I always thought if I had twins, I'd name them Cara and Mia because Caramia means 'my beloved' or 'my heart' in Italian and I liked that. I never had children, but my first dogs were sibling females, so it fit. That was 7 years ago.

The other names were basically words I made up because I liked how they sound. I like rare names. I liked the sound of the name Maia, but it was feminine and my dog was male, so I just went through the alphabet, adding a different letter to the front until I came to Jaia.

I also liked the sound of Asia as a name, so I did the same thing, adding letters to the front to see what I could come up with. She was almost named Deja (as in Deja Vu) but at the last minute, my husband and I independently came up with B'asia.

Darkmoon

· #5 · May 31, 2009

For me, We had been trying to find a name that fit Nub because he came with the name Veersie and we despised it. We tried everything and he reacted to nothing. Not even a sigh. Finally my Ex decided to start poking fun at his docked tail by calling him "Nubby" and Nubs reacted to that name like he had been called it his whole life. And the name stuck and fits him really well

ThoseWordsAtBest

· #6 · May 31, 2009

Smalls is from the movie The Sandlot. Specifically the line "You're killing me, Smalls!" We thought it would be really cute to say it when she did something we didn't like. Saying it stopped being cute by the second day when we had said it about 20,000 times.

District Attorney Jack McCoy is from Law and Order. My love for Sam Waterston and Law and Order aside, Jack is a salt and pepper hair guy and is very regal. He also runs his mouth a lot. We thought it fit well.

Jonas doesn't have a particularly special name. I thought if I ever had a kid, I'd name him Jonas. Well, I hate kids, and so he was lucky enough to receive my favorite name. I also like to sing My Name is Jonas by Weezer to him.

We're about to get a shepherd X named Magpie, and I think I like it just fine if she knows it. We're looking to get an Irish Woflhound, and we're thinking Bane or Rhemington as a name.

ioreks_mom

· #7 · May 31, 2009

we name our pets after characters in books that we really like. iorek is named for iorek byrnison from the golden compass. we wanted a polar bear name and who better to name him after than the king of the polar bears!? he was very timid and shy when we first got him so we were hoping some of the bravery from namesake would rub off!

ThoseWordsAtBest

· #8 · May 31, 2009

ioreks_mom said:
we name our pets after characters in books that we really like. iorek is named for iorek byrnison from the golden compass. we wanted a polar bear name and who better to name him after than the king of the polar bears!? he was very timid and shy when we first got him so we were hoping some of the bravery from namesake would rub off!

I wanted a white dog to name Iorek from those books forever. When I first signed up here I saw your name and was like "MY IDEA!!"

Gingergal

· #9 · May 31, 2009

I don't have children so wanted a name for my dog that means something
(I still don't have my dog yet - patience is a virtue I don't have).

so went online and found a few sites -

http://www.petnamesworld.com/
http://www.babynamescountry.com/baby_names_by_origin.html
(this is great, if you have roots in a different country - it gives you all the country names and meanings.)

Or maybe I am putting far too much thought into it

MonicaBH

· #10 · May 31, 2009

Clyde, my rottweiler, is named after the orangutan in the Clint Eastwood movie "Every Which Way But Loose".

Nat, my chow mix, is named after the Marley song Natty Dreads.

Zellie's "real" name is Rapunzel; she is a golden retriever. Zellie is a shortened nickname.

Kiera's name doesn't have a meaning, really. I couldn't come up with anything to name her so I let my littler brother name her. I think he did a good job.

Kiera is a GSD.

StixXx's name also has no meaning. That was the name that DH felt was most fitting when I brought him home. His previous name was "Ricky", but I wanted to name him Gremlin... or Charles. My best guess for his breed is a Yorkie/schnauzer/something mix.

ShadowSky

· #11 · May 31, 2009 (Edited)

Buck was named after Buck from Call of the Wild.

Before we got Jake I had been planning and planning and had come up with three names for my dog- 'Raine', 'Trip'(after Charles Tucker from Enterprise) or 'Jake'. His original name was 'Peanut', and when we got him and started signing the papers to adopt him, I decided 'Jake' just seemed like a natural fit. I didn't have time to second guess or anything either, because I needed to introduce him to my siblings with the name we'd be calling him by.

BrittanyG

· #12 · May 31, 2009

I asked an online community in the game EQ2 to name my first dog, Peanut. We still laugh about the other names suggested, like Helmet and Dirtbike.

My hubby plays a game called EVE online, and the ships all have cool names. We both liked Abbadon for our Rott.

HersheyPup

· #13 · May 31, 2009

BrittanyG said:
I asked an online community in the game EQ2 to name my first dog, Peanut. We still laugh about the other names suggested, like Helmet and Dirtbike.

My hubby plays a game called EVE online, and the ships all have cool names. We both liked Abbadon for our Rott.

Well, that's a great name after a nice Amarr Battleship! I pilot a Myrmydon myself!! Eve is a great game!! However, my dogs are named Hershey and Toffee..lol...sweet names for sweet doggies!

HORSEandHOUND

· #14 · Jun 1, 2009

Shelby: came with that name and she came to it, and frankly is suited her.
Nanuk (cat): originally Leo. I was trying to think of a name when leaving the store holding adoptions when it started to snow (seasonally uncommon) i wanted to name him something having to do with snow. Nanuk is the name of a polar bear in the book Nanuk of the North
Hagrid (cat): originally ****ens. was a rescue from an elderly woman that died. he'd been eating gawd knows what, was greasy, with dandruff and mats. He's a dark mackerel color, and when i got him he was in semi system overload, so his eyes popped out and his tongue was sticking out a bit. it was a toss up between calling him "frogger" or "hagrid" and in the end hagrid ruled out.
Apollo: he's an Aries that i found while we were in Mercury retrograde. based off just his pics i was going to name him Mercury, but once in person it just didnt fit. After much brainstorming came to the conclusion that Apollo (the same deity in a different culture) that represented fire and the sun like Aries would be appropriate.

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ioreks_mom

· #15 · Jun 1, 2009

ThoseWordsAtBest said:
I wanted a white dog to name Iorek from those books forever. When I first signed up here I saw your name and was like "MY IDEA!!"

heehee!

just a warning, NO ONE will understand you when you tell them his name! we get uric (eewww) a lot. our vet calls him i-o-ric (saying each vowel) and no matter how many times i say his name she still says the same and she has all her staff calling him that now

oh well! our landlords have a dog named jake and the wife calls him jake-y and she calls iorek ur-y...it is not really a name you can do that to!

Keechak

· #16 · Jun 1, 2009

Jack is named after the color of his eyes (Their ice blue) so he is Jack Frost

Kechara is named after a gryphon charecter in the Mage Wars trilogy

Hawkeye is named after Dr. Benjimen Franklen "Hawkeye" Pierce From the T.V. series M*A*S*H

hulkamaniac

· #17 · Jun 1, 2009

I could not come up with a name for my dog, but despised the name Cappy that the shelter gave him. Since I couldn't come up with anything I named him Zero. Brutus came with his name.

Curbside Prophet

· #18 · Jun 1, 2009

Elsa's first drive home this song was playing on the radio - @ 1:51.

lucyloo2

· #19 · Jun 1, 2009

I was going to call her Daisy when I first got her, but it didn't seem to suit her. I was reading the Narnia books at the time and figured Lucy suited her pretty well

lucygoose

· #20 · Jun 1, 2009

Love this thread!

Well, I always like people names.....Willie got his for his AKC name, *kennel name* One The Road Again....so hence the Willie Nelson song......I wasn't going to keep it, but then eveyone liked it and it does fit him and now I am glad he is a Willie.....LOL....But he did not know his name even at 7 months....:-(

I am looking for a female name now as we DID put a depost on a little girl Papillon!! Yipppeee....We get her in about a month.....So those links will help out.....Oh, and what I do sometimes is get the phone book out.....Look there.....and then just see if it goes with the dog......

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