Pet Names

I always wonder how people name their pets and where the names all come from. All of my animals have an unusual name or story as to where that name came from.

First off we have Patch. Patch was only going to be a temp name for my 1st guinea pig but it kind of stuck. My friend said he looked like he had a patchwork of different colours of fur. He looks like someone ran out of fur to make one piggy and ended up being a Patch-work.

Then there is Ichigo. Named after the ginger haired main character of the manga, Bleach. Ichi is also a ginger fluff-ball so it kind of fit him. The name means Strawberry. Perfect for a red head!

My Pink Eyed White piggy is called Hope. That came about because he looked kind of like the white haired character from FF13. He is my smallest guinea pig, but he has such a massive personality.

My 4th guinea was originally called Kadaj, from FF7, but when we found out that she was actually a girl, I renamed her after the alien creature in the game, Jenova.

My hamster is called Yoda. He looks like a blonde version of Yoda!

And lastly, my rat, Lightning. Named after the main character of FF13. She is a pretty little lady, just like her namesake.

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My hamster is called Marley, after the film Marley and Me, i thought the name suits him as he is like the dog, very energetic and cheeky

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I think Yoda is a wonderful name for a hamster, and can just picture a little blonde hamster version of the character!

We have an elderly cat (we don't know exactly how old she is, but she was about 11 when we got her in 2007), who was called Ninny when we rehomed her from Battersea. She's tabby and has stripes just like the inside of fresh nutmeg kernels, so we renamed her Nutmeg. She's completely oblivious to what we call her, so she gets a lot of nicknames - fatmeg, nutwig, nutpig, fatwig, catwig, pigglywig, batfink, squishy, etc....

Nutmeg seems to fit her pretty well (despite the fact that we don't use it all that often!) - there's something quite gentle about the name, and the cat has the sweetest nature you could possibly imagine. I have no idea how anyone could bear to part with such a good-tempered, companionable and affectionate creature, and yet she was at Battersea for months because she was old and sick and no-one wanted her. Lucky for us!

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Sinead- I met a badly behaved golden retriever in the park called Marley the other day. After I had helped his owner capture him, I asked him whether he thought he had been tempting fate by calling his dog Marley. Apparently he had let the kids name him and he hadn't seen the film until the dog was a few months old, then he noticed certain similarities. He was a gorgeous pretty dog though.

Our dog is called Skye, she was called this when we got her from the rescue centre. Our hamsters have been called Eric, Arturo, Cesarre, Hermione, Harriet, Hanibal and Pudding. I think most of the names were just random except Pudding was called Pudding because he was the colour of ice cream with toffee sauce.

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We've had a variety of bizarrely named cats - latest Basil (not sure why, just seemed to fit him) and Mephistopheles (which amused the vet).

Though I sometimes wonder why we bother with names given that they're more usually addressed as 'nogetoffthereNOW', 'don'tyoudarebringthatin' and 'youbadcat'.

Used to have a guinea pig called Squeak (not very imaginative) and a huge grey rabbit/escape artist called Mark I. I believe there was a Mark II as well but I don't remember, was very small at the time which was a pity because later I became rabbit crazy but we didn't have a real rabbit by then.

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Lol Philomela, sounds familiar!

We have 4 cats, Jericho, because my daughter was 5 at the time and learning about the walls of Jericho coming tumbling down and she really liked the word Jericho.

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi - named by my son then aged 3 as he was reading Rudyard Kipling at the time and the cats tail (stripy) looked like the mongoose's tail in the illustrations.

Jennyanydots - because she IS a jellicle cat

Macavity.....who doesn't live up to his name. The sweetest natured cat but very....very....thick!

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FeeJay - Mephistopheles was nearly Macavity because of his criminal tendencies but we decided against it because whenever there was a crime he was ALWAYS there! And also because he is a bit thick as well - still hasn't quite got the hang of the catflap.

We had a cat ages ago called Caesar Augustus because my brother (aged about 5 at the time) had been hearing the Christmas story including the Nine Lessons and liked the name: 'And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus...'.

[Annista]

Philomena, you are so right - all my cats thought they were called Stopit, mainly because they used to lie in wait for the dog (preferably while clinging onto the top of the curtains) and then drop down onto her head. Don't feel sorry for the dog, though, because when she was bored she'd flck the end of her tail backwards and forwards until the cats couldn't stand it any longer and rushed in to the attack and then we'd have a collie and 2 ginger toms tearing round the house like a tornado. Again.

The dog, by the way, responded to absolutely anything. Fleabag was quite common, as was You.