What did you name your pets?

[trdsf]

The cat I adopted in October has been named Althea, after the Grateful Dead song.  She's an utter sweetie:



My previous cats were Random and Mavis.  Mavis was pre-named and given to me on the provision that I keep the name Mavis, which seemed to suit her well anyway.

Random, however, has an entirely weirder tale to the naming of the name.  He was had in the con suite at Ohio Valley Filk Fest in 1992.  I had gone in looking for the friend I had attended the convention with, and she had this big orange cat in her arms and my first thought was Aw, shit.  She wants another cat in the apartment.

She handed him to me.

He had a purr like an Evinrude outboard motor.

And the next words out of my mouth were, "I guess I need a name for my cat."

At a convention, this is the functional equivalent of saying, "I need an ad hoc cat naming committee, stat!"  Immediately, about five people surrounded me, all trying to think up names for this big orange tomcat.¹  Because of his color, someone suggested 'Amber', and then someone else pointed out that 'Amber' was more of a girl's name and this was definitely a boy cat.  Somewhere to the side I heard "Amber... Amber... Amber... Oh!  Nine Princes in Amber!  Prince Random was a redhead!"

And so he became Random.

Lesson Number One about cats: never, ever, ever give them a name they can live up to.  :D


1: 'Big orange tomcat' turned out to be 'huge orange kitten' -- he was only six months old when I got him and he was already big for a cat.  He got huge.

[AllRight]

Peanut and Lucy:

[Unbeliever]

I named my cat Higgs, after the just-then-discovered boson.


But I'm not a nerd...really!

[Hakurei Reimu]

My cat is named Leela, after the Dr. Who character.

[Baruch]

Back in the day (early Dr Who) you could name your cat "Dr Who Companion Of The Week" if it was an easy screamer ;-)

[Cavebear]

Though I've had cats since 1976, I'll mention the ones at the current forever home...  Skeeter (for mosquito because he kept at my feet in gratitude), LC (for Little Cow), Ayla (after the character in 'Clan of the Cave Bear" book), Iza (another CotCB book character), Marley (after Bob) from the lady I adopted him from (and I decided that was a good name).

You can read about the last (current) 3 at http://marksmews.blogspot.com/  New readers always welcome.