What's In A Name?!

I logged on this morning and checked the Pup of the Day thing here at Shell Shock Serenade and saw Roxy, The Goldendoodle. OK, I'm not even going to touch the whole new realm of Dog Breeds that are popping up every where. Basically mixing and matching any two (or more) types of breeds..."Hmmm,  I wonder what I'll get if I cross this Chihuahua with a Great Dane?!". Yikes! As I said that's fodder for another post.

What I do find fascinating is the names people come up with. Roxy, hey I like it, it's sparky, has some flash and I would imagine she probably looked and acted like a 'Roxy" to the person her named her. That's what I think is cool....The wide variety of pet names there are and how folks come up with them in the first place.

I'm not sure that I (or we, when I was a married entity) had a master pet name plan but I do know there was some method to the madness. I think it always kind of began with names we liked, then of course you define why you liked them so that becomes the story that leads to the name. Simple right?!

We found or adopted (I can't really recall) a male cat that we only had for a short time because we couldn't break him of his desire to "mark" the darn house. Translation: he peed everywhere! We had a female cat and this is what guy cats do I guess (come to think of it, guy humans do that too). Anyway we named him Pablo. And that name came from an artist I admired....Pablo Picasso. So we named the cat after one of the founders of Cubism, Picasso....pretty cool right? Except as I mentioned we had to find him another home where he could be fre...to pee. So I always felt we "wasted" a classic pet name on a Dud Cat with a urination fetish.

And it went on. We had a stray German Shepard come in the yard (we lived out in the country at the time and this happened from time to time) and named him Blitz. This was short for Blitzkrieg, A German term from WWII describing their tactics of "Lightning War". An absolutely perfect name in my opinion for a Male German Shepard. Again, this time I don't believe we had any intention of keeping him so I'm not sure what the rational was for wasting that name on a Temp?! Kind of silly, yes? Yep, but I did a lot of Silly, unexplainable sh*t  at that time (sometimes, I'm afraid I still do). Even more unexplainable was that we raised and bred Shepherds at that time (we had 3) so it was quite possible we could keep a male from a littler and need a good name. I know, I don't get it either....

I think we went in for artsy, creative names if I had to try and put a label on it. Nikita En Bleu (Nik or Nicky), French for Nikita In Blue was our first female Shepard. Then Raven Noir (Vin or Vinny) or Raven in Black was our second female. For our third pup, a male we went full out Kraut, er German: Victor The Red (Viktor)or Rote Viktor is how we pronounced it though I've heard that isn't necessarily correct. Any way we chose to go the creative, artsy fartsy route and I still like those names today.

Zoe my cat, is the current pet of the household. I'll be honest, I'm not exactly sure when she was born though I suspect it was around 1995-96, so she's about 15 yrs old (I'm afraid I'm going to have to fall back on the: "I killed too many Brain Cells to remember Defense").... And I really don't recall any process we went through to come up with her name, though I could be mistaken. She was a "discovered kitty" having been separated from her barn cat mum at about 2-3 wks old. My ex-wife Marcia discovered her seconds before Vinnie (Raven) did...and trust me, that wouldn't have been a pretty sight! Any way, we hadn't planned on another pet and to the best of my recollection we just liked the name Zoe. I still do..

The last personal example I have and my all time favorite story is Poochie, the mutt dog from my youth. Pooch was another "discovered" pet. She ran up to me when I was out skateboarding w/friends one afternoon in Worthington, Ohio. I convinced my folks (with help from my little sister) to let us keep her but my folks said only until we found her owner. Hence the name "Pooch", another name for dog. Obviously it was meant to be a temporary name and indeed almost was.

That is because my mum decided she didn't want a dog  around so she told my sister Elizabeth and I, that the owner (an elderly woman, no less) claimed the dog. The reality was mom took her to the Dog pound. But the story does not end there...nope.

Liz and I were upset, really upset like little kids are when such things happen. But I have no doubt we would have gotten over it eventually...but my mom just couldn't stand to see us cry. So she went back and got Pooch the next day. The folks at the pound told her they knew she'd be back! The story we were told at the time was that the kind old lady heard that we loved Poochie SO MUCH that she decided to give her to us. Aww, isn't that just adorable! Well, maybe not but it is kind of a cool story anyway. Sheez, Hallmark Hall Of Fame Channel should make a movie about it.....Some time later we discovered the truth and it's been part of our families pet history ever since. Pooch lived quite a long time, almost in to her teens I believe. And the irony is, Liz and I grew up, moved out and my mum/dad kept her for years afterward. The parents always get stuck with the pet.

So I'm curious, how do people come up with the names of their pets? I know I'm asking for a lot here but can anyone actually leave a comment and enlighten me on their pet name process? I would be very appreciative and darn it, I'm curious so if your so inclined....So, let's have it!