How did your Big Paw get his/her name?

[Leah-n-boy-os]

I'm a huge history buff, and I specialize in Greek/Roman mythology, so for my first dog....Zeus.

Zeus' mom was this HUGE gold Akita/Malamute. We have big hopes for Zeus, as he was the largest and most active of the litter. Hmmmmm.......t he hopes were big, Zeus didn't quite match up. *lol* So....

when we brought Apollo home, he was this cute golden fluff-ball, so we tried for the Sun God this time. He far-surpassed the size of his poor brother, so the sun rules in our house.

Onyx came to us with that name. We've toyed a couple of times with changing it, but so far nothing has struck us yet. I tossed Hades on the table and my husband looked at me like I'd lost my mind.

Our cats are named by the kids, so we have Mysti (don't ask me where that one came from, I have no idea!) and Stitch, as he is the most favorite Disney character in the household. (And yes, our Stitch steals everyone's left shoes and leaves mayhem and Chaos wherever he goes!)

[doglover]

Abbi: we were just coming up with possible name for her on the way back from picking her up and our son who was 2 at the time just started to call her Abbi, which was one of the names we had said so she became Abbi.

Molly: With Molly we had started as soon as we had picked her out. we had to wait a month to pick her up but still could not come up with a name. When we picked her up I was holding her in my lap and said I wanted to name her Molly because she reminds me of Stief Bear I had when I was younger named Molly and she felt just like that bear. It was a special bear to me because I saved up my very small allowance and paid for her myself.

Most of the cat came to us already named and once you foster a cat for so long it is hard to change their name.

Jenn

[Scootergirl]

OK, this is going to be a long list if I include everyone so I'll just do the dogs:

Oasis: I got him from a friend of my boyfriend at the time who was in a band. The only song i liked that they sang was called "Lost in Oasis", so there you go...

Rocko: He is an australian shepherd and we wanted an australian name. The cartoon Rocko's Modern Life was popular at the time so, again, there you go...

Mia: She is an australian cattle dog and came to us with 6 day-old puppies. We wanted to give them all australia-related names. The aborigines call an old woman who acts as a mother figure for their tribe, or a medicine-type woman a "Mia". Her puppies were Darwin, Olivia (Newton-John), Sydney, Bindi (after the Crocodile Hunter's daughter) and I can't remember the other 2, sorry.

Bindi: see above

Buster Brown: since I am known as the animal-lady in my neighborhood, one of the neighbor boys came to my house one day and said, "there's a dog running around and I wanted to know if you wanted it."  I asked him what kind of a dog. He said, "I think it's a collie." "A collie???" I replied. "No, it's not a collie," he said. "It's more like a . . . like a . . . like a Buster Brown."  Well, when I stepped outside to look for him, I saw this skinny little beagle with ears much too big for his skinny little head. The name just kind of stuck.

[brandon]

Bava = Drool (in Italian)

[ZooCrew]

Keiko remained unnamed for a couple of weeks after I got her.  I just couldn't come up with anything I liked.  I liked the name Kei, but thought it was too short, so I played around with various suffixes...... .............K eito (almost named this), Keilo, Keiro, and finally settled on Keiko.  Found out last year it means "adored one" in Japanese, and this spring found out it also means "strong current" in Hawaiian.  Pronounced the same in Hawaiinan (not sure if it's spelled the same.......... .guy at the beach heard me calling her and told me what it meant).  Spelled the same in Japanese, but not pronounced the same.  Japanese:  Kay-koe..............I pronounce it Kigh-koe (rhymes with psycho).

With Gunther the breeder wanted to know his name so she could start getting him to respond to it. I normally don't like naming them before seeing them (he was shipped out to us), but worked with what I had.  I came up with a list of about 15-20 names, and left it up to my husband.  I wanted to include him in the process b/c he really didn't want such a big dog.  So I got the color he wanted and let him choose a name off my list.  He wanted to name him Hoss.......... ..like that was going to happen.  My first choices were Diesel and Guiness, which I thought were great names for brindle dogs, but he vetoed them right away.  I had a few German names on there and he chose Gunther, which also happened to be my least favorite name on the list.  But I think it suits him now.

Lacy (my cockatiel for those who don't know) we got from the humane society.  She came with the name Lucy, and I didn't like that name for her, but didn't want to change it a whole lot in case she knew her name.  So Lacy it is.

[dober_gurl]

Bava = Drool (in Italian)

HAHA I love it!

I hope no one minds but I'm going to do all my animals.

Big Paws
Maggie- We got Maggie when I was like 11 and my twin was obsessed with that name so my mom let her name her that.

Small Paws
Marty- We were picking names out of a hat and that's the name that was chosen.

Alex- He was already named when we got him.

Roxabella- The first dog I was ever allowed to name myself! Originally I was going to get a pit bull puppy and the names were already chosen Roxxi for a girl or Chachi for a boy. Well I didn't get my pit bull puppy but when I got Roxabella Roxxi became her first name! Then my cousin got a pug puppy and named her Bella, so  compromised Roxxibella, it didn't sound right so I made it Rox-A-Bella. hehe I like it, it's unique and I hope no other dog has it!

Cats
Colin- we got him when I was like 1 so I don't know the story behind his name.

Princess Tiger Lily Fluff (a.k.a. Lily)- We rescued her after she had been hit by a car and her owners didn't want to take her to the vet and left her out to die. Well after we had her heal up a bit she desperatly wanted outside, well she always played in our Tiger Lilys and that's where her first name came from. Princess was added after she figured out she could get whatever she wanted when she meowed and then Fluff because she has to much of an attitude to be called Fluffy So Fluff it became!

R.I.P. Poppy- he was named because he liked to pop out of no where and surprise you.

Birds
Sunny- already named when we got her.

Keeley- means beautiful in Irish and I was looking on name sights and came across it. I like it but her nickname is Chicken, lol.

Gordo- already named when we got him, fits him perfectly because he likes puff out and look fat, that's where he got his nickname Pigeon.

Paulie- someone found him outside and gave him to us, when we first got him we thought he was a conure like the bird in the movie "Paulie" so we named him after him. Well, now I've been calling him Demon or Damien. I swear someone let him out on purpose because he's so evil!

other
Melvin(a.k.a. Melvinian)- my green iguana, I named him after my aunt's old iguana Melvil and after Chuckie's pet bug, Melvin(from the t.v. show "Rugrats").

Squishy- My guinea pig. I got him while on vaca in Texas and was sitting in my cousin's room with him, everyone else was downstairs watching "Finding Nemo" and I heard that part with Dory saying I shall call him squishy and he shall be mine and he shall be my squishy Come on, squishy Come on, little squishy. lol and Squishy started to wheek really loud at that, he still does when I say it, so I guess he likes that name!

Dot- My quarter horse, I ride. Her registered name is Little S B so my riding instructor was just looking for a quick name to call her so no one would be calling her Son Of A **tch because of her show name. She has a blaze and on her nose is a Dot so it became her name.

[brandon]

We can not do a paw print for a dog named crusty

[Scootergirl]

I vote for Mowglie! That's a cute name! Or, find out what the italian word for Crunchy or Crusty is, maybe it won't sound so bad in a foreign language!

[shangrila]

This new guy doesn't have a name, but he's slowly turning into either a Crunchy, a Crusty or a Mowgli from the Jungle Book....

I vote for Mowgli! That's a great name 

[shangrila]

Zoey doesn't really have a fun story behind her name. When we decided we were ready to get her, we played the name game back and forth for a week. Dan would suggest a name, I would veto it. I would suggest a name, he would veto it. Finally, one of us suggested zoey and we both loved it, so voila, she became Zoey.

[K9ldy00]

Dozer got his name when he was a few days old. There were 10 puppies and eight nipples. When the pups were eating 2 would be left without a nipple. If Dozer happened to be one of the unlucky ones you would see puppies being dozed out of the way, like a bulldozer coming through.

Grizelda was a abandoned puppy in a ditch. She was always ready for a fight. Her coloring is not really black, it's kind of greyish. I found her name in a baby name book. It said it meant grey woman warrior. It fit her.

Gretchen was a 9 month old hound from petfinders. They had her named Goofy. I could not see calling her that. So I came up with a name that started with g.

Marksman was already named when we got him. His name fits because he will mark everything when he is outside.

Echo is named because she is Marksmans neice and looks alot like him, sort of an echo of Marksman.

Tealk is named after a character on Stargate. I always thought that is what a Rottweiler would look like if he was human.

[Newf Lover]

We were originally going to name our son, if we have a boy, Drake.  But my sister had a boy and named him Blake. (her name is Beth, her husband is Bret and her daughter is Britney, yes you can barf now)  Sooo, we didn't want any potential confusion on our boys names, they would hate us for that, so we thought we would just name our Newf, Drake.  His official AKC name is Bacchanal's Sir Anakin Drake, a very Marin/Star Wars name and the rest is history....  Do I sound extra weird now?

[Anakalia]

This is so interesting! I love all the names, they're all so unique.  Mine are not so unique but oh well. lol

Ramsey, my maltese was named ROMEO by the breeders!! JEEEESH!  We could not bring ourselves to keep that name, because that name didn't fit him at all.  He's a horrible dog, very dominant, try's to rule the world with his nasty bada$$ self..... so we settled on Ramsey as in Ramseys the Great (Egyptian history). 

Koby's story is soooo not even interesting.  His name was Toby when we brough him home.  Tony said,"I'm not having another dog named Toby!"  He grew up with an vicious ankle biting mojo named Toby when he was younger so with that name brought very bad memories of a dog that tried to eat him constantly.  I wanted to name Koby, Logan, because I LOVE that name, but for recognition purposes and the fact a couple of people I had talked to said he'd get used to a new name easier and quicker if we found a name that rhymed with Toby, hence his new name Koby.   I know I know, way super lame.  His full name is Kobalt Blue (which he's called that everytime he gets into trouble 4-5 times daily), but Koby for short.

Andi

[Kiahpyr]

Kiah didn't have a name for weeks after we got her. We just called her puppy and she responded to that very well. After we named her she responded to puppy better for at least a month afterward. We waited too long. Luckily she now knows her name.

I like unique names. It was so hard. Our top picks were Kiki, Kumba or Kimba (an old lion cartoon). Our lizards have egyptian names. We also had her parents to consider in the name. We finally saw Kiah and it just fit. It was australian aboriginal, so we stayed with an all australian name. Kiah Tajsa of Allinga. Kiah means "from the beautiful place" Tajsa of Allinga means "Princess of the Sun". My husband likes to call her Kumba Kiah and I soemtimes call her Ki.

[Blair]

The week before I got Diesel, we were driving a Diesel truck, borrowed it to help us move. Then my husband gave me Diesel and he was so small, that i thought he needed a big name. I figured Diesel Trucks are big and I liked that name, so that is how Diesel got his name LOL

Poor Zeus.....I couldnt think of anything and to me he looked like a Zeus. I know pretty simple and boring LOL

Mr. Grey got his name like 3 yrs before I owned him. I was watching the movie DreamCatcher, and there was some one named Mr. Grey. First thing I thought of was a merle dane LOL I turned to Ben and told him I was getting a merle dane and naming him that. Well 3 yrs later. I got Mr. Grey