Let’s talk about pet names today. Have you named any pets after a literary character? Would you in the future? What literary names stand out as the best pet names?
Julie:
You know, after reading books with pets named after famous characters, like Hamlet (the cat in Losing It) and Helsing (the cat from the Night Huntress series), and Artemis (the ghostie dog protector in the Charlie Davidson series) I’m starting to think pets should be given really awesome names. Now, none of my current pets are named after anything literary, but maybe in the future! I mean, how cool would it be to name a cat Medusa? My husband already thinks cats are evil, so why not? My husband did have an iguana named Thor as a kid, so he’s into some literary/mythological names too, so maybe he’ll agree to name a future dog Loki (cause seriously dogs are cray-cray mischievous) or maybe a cat named Calypso (since they are so sneaky).
Lynn:
I don’t have any pets, and I haven’t started naming my plants. At least not yet. But I can seriously see the appeal of naming a pet after a favorite literary character. I’m imagining a snow-white cat named after Simon Snow. (And I’m imagining all that hair all over the place which is why I don’t have a pet!) Or a Scottish deerhound named Jamie. If you are going to have a dog, have a DOG. If Rose was still actively blogging, she’d tell all of us about her dog, Maddox. Named after Travis Maddox from Beautiful Disaster. Here’s a picture of Maddox!
We have a rescue dog we took in recently named Gandy, short for Gandolf. He has a grey face. My husband suggested my son’s middle name and after he was born I learned my husband took the name from a certain comic book he read. My son’s middle name is Logan. Good thing I liked the name.
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Love Gandy, that’s an awesome pet name 🙂
Hey, and glad that worked out for your son’s middle name. You wouldn’t have agreed to it if you didn’t like it even before you knew the source 🙂
When we got our dog over the summer, she was already named but we considered changing it. I tried and tried to think of a good literary name that we all liked, but couldn’t come up with one. I love it when I see other people’s literary names, though!
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Aww that’s too bad you couldn’t think of another name for her, but that just means the name she came with must have been good. I kept the name my kitty came with 🙂
When I got my horse, DH and I argued about a new name because I didn’t like the name they had for him. His registered name (he’s a retired racehorse) is Willin’ a Prayer. The previous owners called him Will or William. I was not a fan. We knew we were going to have to go with something completely different. We went back and forth until we finally settled on Dante. Who he is named after depends on who you ask. I will say Dante’s Divine Comedy. He would say Dante from Kevin Smith’s Clerks. LOL
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Hey, the name is awesome, and you can have your own stories on where it came from 🙂
We named our cat, Perry, after the special agent character on Phineas and Ferb Disney televison show. My daughter used to love to watch it. I love your idea of naming pets for famous book pet characters. I will have to research this next time I get a new pet. Thanks for sharing with us on Literacy Musing Mondays.
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Thanks, Mary!
I wanted to name my children after literary characters or authors. My hubs didn’t go for that though. :/ I also haven’t had any pets with literary names since I’ve been married…YET. I did have a dog named Winston (as in Churchill) when I was in high school and college. And I’m hoping that someday I’ll have pets with names like Bennett and Darcy. 😉 If I could keep a plant alive, I might consider naming one. 😉 *haha*
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Great idea, Brandee, to name your kids after literary characters! Bummer that it didn’t work out!
There go the hubs, ruining it for all of us… lol
What an interesting idea! (As always, you surprise me… Ever thought of writing a story or two?!) I did toy with the idea, but our son’s lukewarm interest in pets threw a wrench in the whole thing. We had a Retriever, Maxie, but we had to give her up when we moved from Russia to England. Lately, I’m trying to convince our son to allow us to buy a cat, and we’re getting there – slowly. I’ll call her Minerva – can you guess why? 😉
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Good luck on the cat situation, Ramona. And Minerva is the Roman Godess of Wisdom. Unless there is some other Minerva?
I’m going to guess Minerva McGonagall – Harry Potter 🙂
I don’t think any of mine fall under literary names — oh, wait, one does!
Growing up we had a completely black cat who was the most awesome-est cat EVER. Like, the perfect cat. We named him Bagheera from The Jungle Book.
When I was in college, I had fish. I named them all after musicians. I think this is them in order: Elvis, Stix, Waylon, Johnny & June. I feel like there was one more…Hmm.
Now, I have a dog named Baby. She actually came with that name, and I kept it. The boyfriend always jokes, “Nobody puts Baby in the corner.” And I always respond, “Except Mama.” His dog’s name is Lucy, so I always sing “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”
Those are all great, Charlie. And I love the idea of naming the fish after musicians as well!
A few years ago, I read a mystery series by Lilian Jackson Braun that featured two cat, Koko and YumYum. When I was given a Himalayan, I named him Koko. A few years later, we adopted a rescue cat and named her YumYum. If we add any new pets, I can definitely see literary names for them as well.
That’s great that you had two cats, both named after characters from the same books, Tammy!
I don’t have any live pets now, but years ago I had a West Highland White Terrier named Natty Bumppo. Also there was a plant–a magnificent coleus we called Gloriana, a reference to Edmund Spenser’s poem The Faerie Queene.
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Both great choices, Martha!