{"id":6799,"date":"2010-03-18T06:32:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-18T10:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2010\/03\/18\/pet-names\/"},"modified":"2014-07-30T14:41:41","modified_gmt":"2014-07-30T18:41:41","slug":"pet-names","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2010\/03\/18\/pet-names\/","title":{"rendered":"Pet Names"},"content":{"rendered":"

This blog is called “Baby Names,” but I would like to talk briefly about pet names. We have a new cat<\/a> at our house, and he needs a name, and this is the first pet I’ve named in 15 years or so.<\/p>\n

\"newcat4\"
\nWhen I adopted two male kittens from a shelter right after college, I gave them people names I considered far too quirky ever to be used for children: George and Oliver. Well, 15 years later the name Oliver is in full swing and the name George still seems quirky but definitely not unusable.<\/p>\n

When I took in a female stray, we named her Amelia. Amelia was a quirky choice in 1996 (#222), but it sure isn’t quirky now (#68). Not that it mattered, since we soon called her exclusively by the nickname Mouse, so that I had to really reach to remember what we’d originally named her.<\/p>\n

I think there are three basic categories of pet names, though there is plenty of overlap between categories:<\/p>\n

1. Names based on physical appearance or actions: Tiger, Puddles, Butterscotch, Spot, Jumper, Mittens, Socks, Frisky, Shadow, Midnight, Smokey, Snowflake, Fluffy.<\/p>\n

2. People names—either ones the namer would like to use for a child or ones the namer considers too amusing\/quirky\/eccentric for an actual child.<\/p>\n

3. Names that are somewhere in between: Buttercup, Otter, Puzzle, Rocky, Muggle.<\/p>\n

My goal is to find a #3 name this time. And not to be morbid, but I’d like it to have enough dignity to work in a sentence in which the vet gives me some bad news.<\/p>\n

What kinds of names have you chosen for your pets?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This blog is called “Baby Names,” but I would like to talk briefly about pet names. We have a new cat at our house, and he needs a name, and this is the first pet I’ve named in 15 years or so. When I adopted two male kittens from a shelter right after college, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-1LF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6799"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10259,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6799\/revisions\/10259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}