How did you come up with names of your kids or pets?

I really HATE my middle name. Why in the hell did they ever saddle me with that lousy name? So, naming my pets was important to me. I had a big ol' tom cat, he was Pete. I had a small, fury, affectionate tom, he was Fuzzybuddy. The there was a female, who used to jump on everybody and chase her tail; she was "Turkey". I didn't have kids. So, how did you come up with names of your kids or pets?
 

My husband liked my name, so we named my daughter Christina. My son is Michael which has always been a popular boys name.

My dog was named by my daughter. He’s a Dachshund and I wanted Peanuts or Oscar but she liked Pickles..it fits him but I think Mr. Grumpy would have fit even better.

The names of all my other pets now long gone were probably chosen by my kids.

We had cats named...

Muffin, 2 Charlies, Chelsea, Peaches and Murphy.

2 other dogs we had were Buster and Benji.
 

We chose the name of our country's patron saint, David.

We left the choice of any other name(s) to him.

When he was 13 he chose Tristan, which he has kept ever since (1976) .
 
My daughter's first name was the title of a book I read while I was expecting. I loved the name; it was unusual without being "out there". I finally talked my husband into it. Her middle name is the feminine version of a saint that my husband admired.

Our first dog had a Turkish name, as we were living in Turkey at the time. Our second dog had an Inuit name that meant "fast as the wind" (she wasn't, she was very lazy). Our third dog came with her name and we didn't change it.
 
For pets, some just popped into my head, some were character names from books. My daughter's name was suggested by my Mom. We both liked it. Her middle name is the same as one of my old best friends who named her son my middle name, and her grandson has my (fairly rare) first name.
 
My only children are identical twin boys. They are now adults. We had to be careful naming them. We chose rather common names (Nothing goofy) and similar. We didn't want to
saddle either one with one goofy name & the other one more common. They can use either form. Donald/Don, and Douglas/Doug. Neither has a complaint with their name.
 
Criteria for choosing our children's names:
1. good biblical name
2. name that offered at least one good nickname, should they choose to use it
3. name that would be appropriate both for a child and for a corporate executive
One was named in memory of a cousin who had died in a motorcycle accident.

Pet names started our being color based - marmalade (cat), shadow (dog). Then came "Annie" (as in "Little Orphan ..". She eventually weighed 150 pounds). Our current dog was two years old when we got him from the shelter so we kept the name he had. Had a dwarf parrot years ago. My son couldn't quite pronounce Polly - it came out Poe-lee - so we named him Napoleon. Nasty, nasty bird!
 
When I was a kid I fell in love with the musica "Oklahoma!" I decided that if I ever have a daughter, I would name her Laurey, like the main female character in that show. So my first child got the name Laurie (really Laura, but
she's always been called Laurie, and that's how she spells it.)
 
I wanted an unusual name for my daughter, it was taken from a book I read while pregnant, luckily she has always liked it and we’ve never met anybody with the same name
 
As soon as I found out I was pregnant I bought a book of names. The hubby and I poured over each page. My hubby's only request was that he wanted names that couldn't be shortened. I don't know what the big deal was about that. We named our son Roy and our daughter Wendy.

As for the pets, when we adopted our two labs they already had names. They advised us to keep them and we did. Bumper and Pepper. For the Shepard's we chose Bullet, my hubby loved Roy Rogers and that was his dogs name. Then we had Rebel who lived up to his name. We called out cats Boots, Dixie and Ginger. Each one of them was shortened to Bootie, Dix and Ginny. It really didn't matter because they never came when you called them anyway. My bird is Kerby and he came with that name also.

There were numerous other names for our smaller pets, Guinea pigs, hamsters, other birds, fish. If it had a heart beat the kids named it.
 
We named our dog Bigfoot, because when his hair grows long he looks like a 'Bigfoot'. Cat is named Loki after the Norse God of Mischief. :)
 
My son is II. That was a given. My daughters name was very popular at the time and actually my MIL pushed me towards it..Pets have been many and they just came as they fit, I suppose. Nothing special here.
 
My only children are identical twin boys. They are now adults. We had to be careful naming them. We chose rather common names (Nothing goofy) and similar. We didn't want to
saddle either one with one goofy name & the other one more common. They can use either form. Donald/Don, and Douglas/Doug. Neither has a complaint with their name.


Reminds me of one of a series of posters I created in another life...sorta

zgXY8d1.jpg
 
Apropos to whether your children liked their names: When my daughter entered high school, she decided to "reinvent" herself and opted to go by her middle name. Some of her high school friends called her by the full middle name, others shortened it and some shortened it further. Naturally, her older friends still called her by her first name.

The phone would ring.....my husband would answer it and say, "I'm sorry, you must have the wrong number" and then he'd realize who they were calling for. Her boyfriend called her by her first name at our house and her middle name everywhere else.

It got really confusing for those three years.

When she graduated, she decided to go back to her first name. Much easier on everyone....LOL.
 


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