Dog Names

One of my dogs is Muffin; the other is Winston Petunia Hollander III. Both very good names, and sometimes the dogs will even come when called, especially if it is dinnertime.

There are various camps of thought about dog names:
Show names are long and impossible and usually shortened to a nickname in Real Life, they often have the kennel name somewhere in there.

Hunting names are short and to the point, after all, by the time you call out Winston Petunia Hollander III, the deer is five miles away and the rest of the hunters are rolling on the floor giggling

There are traditional names, Rover and Fido and so on. These come in small books at the grocery store that list 1,000 names for dogs; popular names are not necessarily bad but if you go to a dog park, it may end up the same way family dinners at my Italian ex in laws, when you called out the name 'Joe' half the men at the dinner party stood up.

Then there are the tiny toy purse dogs who have names like oopsyboopsykittikens, lol. Nuff said..

There are those who name their dogs 'Killer' and 'Brute', usually people who do not train the dog very well and who end up owing bunches of money when their dog bites someone.

There are chick magnet names,(I have no examples, not needing any chick magnets myself) used to impress the babes when the owner walks the dog; but the dog doesn't care and I suppose if the owner and the chick shower attention on the dog because of the name it is not necessarily a bad thing.

What kind of dog names do you like?

Our dachshund is named Sundance. No particular reason except I like the way it sounds. We call her Sunny most of the time

Our boxer was a gift to me from my husband for our fifth wedding anniversary. I named him Juno, after one of our favorite West Texas roads to hunt for snakes on, Juno Road. He is aka "The White Beast" or occasionally "The Four Legged Train Wreck".

I TRY to pick something "unusual" to name any of my critters......unfortunately, many of mine have come to me pre-named, thus the ones named, "Sally" and "Toto", ugh. I can't choose a name for any animal until I get to know them and their personality, and usually a name just comes to me.....but even when they come "pre-named", they end up with nicknames.....I think Toto answers to "Fuzzbutt" better than to Toto, lol....

When I was showing, of course you had to have the big, long, fancy names to appear in the show catalog and on registration papers, but then they always had the short home names. One of my favorites was my Beaglie "Chardon Yachtsman" as his registered name (again, pre-named that as a pup)......we called him, "Yahtzee", lol. I just couldn't bring myself to say, "Yachtsman, SIT!" Duh.

I can't choose a name for any animal until I get to know them and their personality, and usually a name just comes to me

You're so right on. I had Juno's name all picked out before we picked him up, he was going to be named "Shiner" (he has a black spot on his eye). But then once I saw him in person for the first time and got to know him that first day, the name "Juno" just came to me, and it really seemed to fit him for some reason. Now I can't imagine calling him "Shiner"!

I agree with what Cat said that Kelli agreed with. lol

I had Jersey for 2-3 days before I decided on a name. It's actually "Jersey Bounce"-- one of my favorite Benny Goodman songs. Besides, she really does bounce around a lot.

One of her nicknames is "Monkey Girl". Until she was about 4-5 months old, she used to be able to scale a chain link fence. No joke. You have no idea how funny it is to see a golden retriever climbing a fence like a little kid.

One of my brothers calls her "Jersey Woman". When he comes over he'll dance down the hallway, holding her paws singing "Jersey" instead of "Pretty" in the Roy Orbinson song.

Since I do alot of rescue, they usually come already named, but most times that changes since the names they came with do not fit. I had one Named Crush, and he never crushed or trampled anything, his name would up being Crash. He did want to try to drive the car when we went places and I knew if he ever could he would for sure Crash into anything lol

Our Most recent is Vader, my almost 6 year old named him for a star wars dude no doubt.

But when I actually bred and named them myself, I went wirh first all A's first, etc, I only got to the B's lol I wanted the pups but homes were hard to find that I felt safe with.

Ahhh this makes me sad so Im off!

my lab mix is named taliesin, it's a welsh name and is actually the name of the king of the bards in a welsh story. the first night home, he barked at every single noise. therefore his name. huan(who an) is actually spelled dhuiane, gaelic. it means one. the reason is that when i was finally ready to get another dog after euthanizing my last whippet(arantxa), the first thing i said was "she's the one!" also the ad appeared for the first time that day when i saw it, she was one week old and the first born. my deposit for her was $100 and i was the first one that called that day. arantxa, my late whippet, was already named when i got her but it was amusing that she was named after the tennis player who share the last name as me.

I show dogs (just like Cat does) so we have to come up with some unusual names for their "Show" names and then there is their "call" name.

I think long and hard about the names for my dogs..sometimes too long and hard.

I have a whole "Country & Western" theme going on at my place..
My kennel prefix is "South Dixie" so all of their show names start with that..
for example:

South Dixie's Marshal Dillon..( "Dillon")
South Dixie's Country Singer ( "Waylon") for Waylon Jennings of course!
South Dixie's Wild West ("Wyatt")
SOuth Dixie's Cowboy Boots ("Justin")
South Dixie's The Man in Black ("Cash") for Johnny Cash of course!
South Dixie's War Paint ("Cheyenne")

anyway, you get the idea! all have a meaning and a related call name!
sometimes when I have helped friends come up with names for their pets I have used the on line baby names for ideas!

Star Wars names are great! When I adopted my dog from a shelter his given name was Bandit, common name, but not suiting for him. He certainly was not a Bandit even tho he stole my heart. I always read that when training that dogs respond better to 2 syllable names with a vowel type ending. So I named him Jango, after Jango Fett of course. Boba Fett rules! But Jango just sounds better. If I dare say the name Bandit now I get ignored. Our other dog came with the name Haiku, being a Shiba Inu it was just perfect for him, plus he responds really well to it. And it's fun to say. When I was a kid we had Dobie's and we named them Diablo and Malachi. I like different names that you don't find too often. I've been grooming dogs for 15 years so I have heard alot of great names, but personality is an important factor when finding the right name.

Awwwwwwwww Michelle.....I sued to have a little 13" Beagle named, "Catlynn Boot Scootin Boogie, lmao......"Scooter" was her call name....