Online review for a Yeti dog bowl said “Great bowl! Just don’t get your dog’s name engraved on it because it will outlast them!”

My grandfather said “It already comes with his name engraved on it”

Now my dog is named Yeti

And what happens to be the story behind your mother’s maiden name?

I found Pliny frozen in my garage at like maybe 2 weeks old. (Door had blown open somehow) Thought he was dead until he moved his eye right as I was tossing him in a trash can. Had to bottle feed him and he was super sick, so I didn’t think he’d make it. Didn’t name him, just called him Tiny. Once he recovered and it was clear that he owned me, I started calling him Pliny because it sounded kind of like Tiny and was a beer that I really enjoyed at the time. He’s still super small 12 years later, so I think he was left behind because he was the runt. Or being frozen stunted his growth.

Taco Bob is named Taco Bob because we were drunk.

When he was a tiny stray kitten, he ran under a shed to hide from me. He thought he was safe but his back feet were still sticking out. I grabbed him by his toes and now his name is Toes.

We don’t have pets but our neighbour has two cats and they are the bane of my existence. Yowling at the door even though we’ve never fed the little bastards, and scaring the birds away as they like to shake the branches of our tree.

As a result, we call the grey one “that little shit”, and the dotted one “that little cunt”. The names have stuck in our household, and we have to watch ourselves when we trade pleasantries with the neighbours.

I couldn’t think of a name for her when she was a kitten so I just called her Kitty as a placeholder. Then, that became her name. My Kitty.

My partner named our cat Lana because he wanted to be able to scream “LAANAAA!” like Archer

I had a dog for 20 years. We called him Git, because when we tried to chase him off he would just come to us instead. He was the best stray mutt a kid could ask for.

My rat’s name is Finnegan after the dog puppet from Mr. Dressup.

We have two guinea pigs.

Very often, guinea pigs are named after food. Our two rescues came with food names. However, everything eats guinea pigs and I feel it’s wrong to name them after food. We changed their names.

We named them after two characters from Downton Abbey: Daisy and Rose. Plants are the only living things that fear guinea pigs, so they are nice, powerful names for them.

Daisy in the background, Rose in front.

She’s a skittish, posh, and skinny as hell greyhound. We live in Seattle. So…Maris.

In december last year I had to put down my 15y/o dog, named Santino. He was a little stupid and couldn’t keep still, so I named him after the guy from The Godfather (a bit grim I know). I also have two cats, a three color grump called Hollie (named after Billie Holiday) and a tuxedo lovable fuzzball called Louie (named after Louie Armstrong).

Edit: Oh, I almost forgot. I also had a kitten (who died of complications from being weaned off too early) called Curie.

I’ve got two for a pair of cats we adopted at the same time.

First was Stusy (pronounced stu-c). He was named after a typo. My partner and I were planning a move and I accidentally misspelled study. We looked at it and decided it was a good cat name, which it was. He was the smartest cat we ever had. He died a couple years ago too young from what the vet said was likely genetic kidney problems.

His brother, our scaredy cat, is Big O. At the cattery (our name for the local cat adoption place), he was the one that wanted nothing to do with us and so we clearly had to adopt him. Every time we pet him he vigorously cleaned that spot. I don’t remember what we were going to name him. The cattery named him Big O after the tire place where he was found. He was driven from one small town in Indiana to another, about 50 miles, before he was found in the engine compartment of someone’s car who stopped at Big O to check the meowing from the engine. He was Stusy’s best friend and while he’s still easy to startle, he lets us pet him in controlled conditions (usually us lying down and holding very still) and is the goofiest of his siblings when they’re playing.

I always choose based on personality, or let them choose for themselves if they’re especially chatty.

Some examples:

• Screech, male cat, got him after weaning and the only things he could vocalise were variations of screeches. So, Screech. Also worked well with the fact that he had a full black coat, so you’d always hear him first.

• Mimi, female cat. Found by one of my former coworkers next to an apartment building stairway, asked her what she’d like to be called. She said: “meeee…” in the cutest, squeakiest way imaginable. I asked and what else. “Meeee…” again, so that was that. She ended up earning it, she was exuberantly inquisitive and playful.

• Maia, female cat. It was the most feminine name to also have a sort of benevolent but tired aristocratic aloofness. She was always bothered by your unrequested presence, always complaining with a bored chain smoker’s croon of “mmmmaaawwwww…” She also obsessively groomed every living thing she had in her proximity, including a chicken (the only one dumb enough to not run away) and a hamster.

• Lord, male dog. He was fucking majestic, looked like a miniature lion with black, white and copper stripes (about as large as a Golden Retriever). And he owned that name, always lording over the place. Ironically, got poisoned by an envious neighbor (I’m serious).

• Ralph, the (happy) exception, male dog. So, this guy, had been my brother since I turned 10. First time I met him, he was slobbering. And he was a German Shepherd / Alsacian mix, these guys don’t usually drool a lot afaik. But my guy was dripping. So, naturally, I wanted to call him Spit. I mean… naturally! Luckily, mum intervened with this one and declared him Ralph, because it was the friendliest* German name she could think of at the time. And he wore it well, he was always vivacious, but calculated.

Richard Scarry/Busytown fans. Wife got a cat during COVID and named her Sally Cat.