Comments on: Cat Names: What Do They Mean?

By: Bonnie

Bonnie — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 21:22:53 +0000

Sunny is a sweet baby who is a rescue and bright orange as his name(18 mos) and his elder friend is a long hair tuxedo cat named Felix of course. he is 3 and they are buds.

By: Lillian

Lillian — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 21:38:21 +0000

I have two adorable cats, Merry and Pippin (or Pip for short), and their personalities reflect their namesake characters in The Lord of the Rings, even though my kitties are both female!

Pippin is the happy-go-lucky cat who always manages to get into trouble (curiosity!)… and who has a hobbit like hunger!

Merry is the wiser, calmer cat, who helps keep Pippin in line. She is super loving and always wants to stay by your side.

By: Katie Hancock

Katie Hancock — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 15:19:02 +0000

I have four cats: Baby Serious, or B. Serious, is a 23 pound Bengal mix and the leader or Alpha Cat. Scampalino LaMata, A.K.A Scampi, is our Italian boy. Spider Ghostbutt, a now all black teenager, had a white stripe down his back, a white tail, & white pantaloons when he was a kitten. Finally, there is Big Kitty Dorkus, a Maine Coon mix, who is, well . . . a dork.
I am definitely their human Mom, but I like that they are Cats, not human Babies.

By: Peggy

Peggy — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 16:23:27 +0000

We have four feline “children” and all of them have human names at this point, although we have had a few in the past who didn’t. Our kids are Ozzy (Ozman, Ozmonster, brown tabby with whte), Melanie (Mel, Mellie, Millie, Millie-Moo, one-eyed bob-tailed little calico), Samantha (Sam, Sammie, Sammie-Sue, three-legged brown tabby with white), and Zack (Zackaroni, very fluffy gray boy with a little white spot on his chest). They are all wonderful kitties!

By: Gail Whitman

Gail Whitman — Sun, 22 May 2011 19:08:27 +0000

I have always named my cats after TV or movie characters. My last 2 were Rosie (Rosie O’Donnell) and Harpo (Oprah). When I recently adopted 2 shelter kittens after my beloved Harpo passed, it took me a long time to find names. After they were with me for a couple of weeks they became Oscar and Emmy–my 2 little prizes!!!!

By: beverly

beverly — Fri, 20 May 2011 22:26:06 +0000

jasper, is a black cat that “walked up” to my door. i took “him” to the vet to be fixed-and he came out a “she”(my mistake!). she was then jasper-tina. then, jasper-tina turner, j.t.–when i am annoyed with her-she is tabatha-so that she doesn’t know it is really her i am talking to!!

By: beverly

beverly — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 04:29:30 +0000

i took a black “male” kitten to the dr., named Jasper. they called and said “your jasper is a jackie”. so “she” became jasper tina-turner. she is a “little princess” and answers to “my little princess jasper”. she certainly is my princess.

By: Noel

Noel — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:01:52 +0000

I have mostly named all the cats I’ve rescued/adopted human names, after observing them at home for awhile to see what names they lend themselves to. Currently I have 4: a large mostly black/white female named Monkeybelle Ramona (Monkeybelle after a character created by a performance artist whose baby we had in the NICU where I worked, Ramona because I picture a big-boned gal when I hear the name); a tiny, 5 lb., 3 oz. orange tabby female named Delilah Lucienne (Delilah means fragile/delicate in Hebrew/Arabic, Lucienne in memory of our tuxedo Lucien,); a white male with one blue eye, one green eye named Puck Dawson (had other names in mind, but when he finally was old enough to come home from the vet where he was born to a stray, he behaved so Puck-like when he met my 6 other cats-as in “Midsummer Night’s Dream”, not MTV’s “Real World”-& Dawson because I loved the character Dawson Leary on “Dawson’s Creek”); Tristan Rhys, a large male cream & white tabby recently adopted with a potentially life-shortening heart condition (Tristan means ‘sad’, Rhys is Welsh for ‘enthusiastic’-Tristan because I knew I could lose him prematurely to heart disease, Rhys because he is wildly energetic with the highest play drive I’ve ever seen in an adult cat). One can tell that I consider them children, given that they have middle names, too, & the considerable thought put into naming them. Needless to say, I have no human children. I’m a pediatric nurse with lots of children at work. I love other people’s children. My cats are my family.

By: kim

kim — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 01:02:24 +0000

My kitty is a female Seal-Point Siamese. I named her Isis because she has ice-blue eyes. She looks exotic so I thought she deserved an exotic name. She is my baby. Follows me around like a puppy. She loves her momma!

By: NANCY HOLLIS

NANCY HOLLIS — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:27:38 +0000

I have one named Boots because he has four white paws.
Another’s name is Rusty because he is a big orange tabby.
The third is Dinah – after Alice in Wonderland’s cat.

By: CatGenie Reviews

CatGenie Reviews — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 06:27:20 +0000

Interesting, I’ve never thought about it that way before! Thinking back on it now (and knowing in hindsight that I am a dog person, and not a cat person), my cats have always had non-human names such as Bandit and Tiger.

By: Kathi

Kathi — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:58:43 +0000

My cats are named (female), “Little Bit”. She was small and undernourished as a new kitten, and she is still very small for a cat. She is satiny grey in color. We call her “Widdles”, and she answers to that name more than Little Bit. This cat definitely has an “attitude” PLUS! If you scold her or swat at her, for bad behavior, she will argue back, as if to say, “Noooo, I didn’t do that, or Noooo, don’t get angry with me!” She is very loving toward me, in particular, but she will sit on my husband’s lap, but not very often. She is laying on my lap as I type this. I go online every night to check emails, and she climbs up and makes a bed on me while I surf the web and type, I found a stray cat one day, and seriously thought about keeping it. Once she spotted me holding this cat, she turned into a “demon” cat! She hid under the bed for two days, and finally the day after I gave the kitten away, she finally came out, but she would not lie on my lap until the following day! She hissed at everyone, including me, and she fought me when I tried to hold her, scratching and biting, as if I were a mean stranger!

My other cat, a former “farm” cat, is a boy named “Peek-a-Boo”, appropriately named after the fact that every time we visited my husband’s parents’ farm, she would peek out around an old freezer they kept in their garage, as if to see if we had brought food or something. Our parents offered us the cat, freely, so we brought him home. The other “demon” cat personality came out in the female cat, and it took a couple of weeks before she allowed his presence! She has now adopted him as a brother, and they play together just fine. He has never been able to meow properly, and sort of squeaks when when trying to do so. He jumps on our bed every night, when he sees me walk into the room, squeaks, and curls up on the bed, showing how handsome he is, and then proceeds to rub himself all over me, and coaxes me to pet him back. We also have a Toy Poodle, a Boston Terrier, and a Lab, all of whom require lots of attention. The cats love the dogs, and the dogs tolerate the cats! However, I would not take a million dollars for any or all of them! They are my livelihood, and I love them tremendously!

By: Cathy

Cathy — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 14:51:19 +0000

Spanky, name given by my husband when he first looked at him on the day we adopted him.
Angus, my choice of name for Spanky’s brother, because I love the name and it suits him.
The two brothers were to be euthanized and are now loved and pampered pets, who bring us much happiness.

By: Abby

Abby — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 23:38:56 +0000

Isis- (female, all black) Egyptian goddess
Duncan- (male, orange tabby) big red boy, so he needed a Scottish name
Bean- (female, buff and white) seemed to suit her as she was tiny when i adopted her
Pearl- (female, all white) self explanatory
Selkie- (female, gray and white) from Scottish mythology

By: Jenn

Jenn — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 17:59:14 +0000

Ragamuffin and Pava.

By: Candace

Candace — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 14:14:59 +0000

My cat was named Candy at the shelter. Her name is part of the reason why I chose her, that and her sweet disposition and her condition. She is a special needs cat with cerebellar hypoplasia. I don’t consider her my child, although she does answer to Baby Cakes. But, she has become a part of my family. Even my parents, who are not cat people by any stretch of the imagination, adore her. When the visit me, they spend most of their time playing with her! My parents thought I named her after myself, but I thought of her name as a sign that she was the cat for me.

By: Erica

Erica — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 06:43:29 +0000

Odin is my cat’s name. She is named after the Scandinavian god. When we brought her home she caught a cold and one of her eyes closed for a few days. Names can be very important to a cat’s personality. She is very much a part of the household and she rules the home very well. She is very much a part of our lives I do think of her as my little child and she thinks of me as her free meal ticket. It is a good balance.

By: Adrian

Adrian — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 15:56:54 +0000

My girls are named Penelope and Piper. Super gorgeous! Tremendously friendly! Emotive, tempermental and fiercely independent. They are more than just cats, they’re family members.
I love my girls!

By: Iva

Iva — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 16:12:45 +0000

Maestro earned his name. He showed up as maybe a 4 week old kitten and moved in under the bush beside the puppy yard. When the four dogs would go outside they made a beeline to his bush and started howling. They sounded like the unharmonious warm up that bands and orchestras do before the show, thus the Maestro. He was feral and it took awhile to catch him (to maintain peace and harmony in the ‘hood). He was starving, skin and bones, and very tiny but he never feared the dogs. They became his personal toys. The plan was to catch him and place him. That was 7 years ago and he is still here.

By: Steph E

Steph E — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 06:57:09 +0000

My lovely cat is named Attila… we went through a bit of a trend of naming our cats after warlords… first Erik the Red, then Attila the Hun.. next will probably be Genghis Khan.

Unfortunately Attila the Tonkinese is too much of a sook and a wuss to be much of a warlord, so we just call him Tilly and baby him.

By: iratecat

iratecat — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 02:11:13 +0000

My girlie’s name is Sierra, named after the mountain ranges she resembles, since she’s a tortoiseshell. I don’t think I’d ever give an animal a “normal” human name – it’s too boring. I also won’t name my pets after other people/characters/things/whatever, since I think every animal should be itself. My boyfriend’s cat’s name is Gandalf, though, and our puppy was almost named Nimitz, after the treecat in David Weber’s Honor Harrington series.

I was one of the “consider as family, but not as children.” I’m too young to have kids, anyway.

By: Suzanne

Suzanne — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 21:35:39 +0000

The youngsters are Oliver and Zelda. Before I brought them home from the rescue organization I was thinking of Oliver and Emma (naming them after long-gone grandparents) but the girl was too feisty and lively and ENERGETIC to be named Emma and somehow Zelda popped into my head. I think her wild streak made me think of Zelda Fitzgerald. Oliver is just like a big soft squishy cuddly teddy bear so my original choice for him was perfect. Or purrfect.

Second oldest is Rudy, named after Rudolf Nureyev because he arches his back and bobbles on his toes like a ballet dancer and he’s very high strung, like a temperamental dancer.

The old man is Mac, short for Macbeth. He was a young stray when I took him in and for a while picked fights with my oldest cat at that time. A 2 AM dispute woke me up and as I dragged myself out of bed to break it up, the phrase “Macbeth has murdered sleep” popped into my head, so that became his name. It also lends itself to good nicknames for him – Big Mac and Mac Attack.

By: Sam

Sam — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:51:46 +0000

I named my two cats “Lily” and “Dottie” after silent film stars and sisters, Lillian and Dorothy Gish. Lily is small, but bright and assertive, while sister Dottie is an affectionate, gentle-giant of a cat. Lily often acts like a little person, and is very attached to me; a friend jokes that my “daughter” Lily and I have a cat named Dottie.

Someone came to work with a litter of kittens and I took two home. I never expected how much they’d come to mean to me, and I guess I do think of them as my “cat children.” I’d break down doors to get to them, if I had to.

The people who tease me about “cat children,” ironically, will also say my cats are spoiled. My reply is always “They SHOULD be spoiled!” Their entire life takes place in our apartment…it’s not like I’m trying to prepare them to get a job and make a life of their own out in the world. I spoil and indulge them whenever I can.

By: Mari

Mari — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 01:53:50 +0000

My girls have people names, and I have no doubt that in my case, it’s because I do think of them as my children. I even refer to them as my kitty-daughters. Isabel was so named because she is very much a beautiful princess. Maisie’s name fits her sweet and gentle yet playful personality.

By: gina

gina — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:38:50 +0000

My three beasts are:

Scout – an orange tabby – for my favorite novel, To Kill a Mockingbird
Tex – probably a turkish van/siamese mix – was rescued in Dallas
Marley – a one-eared calico – for my favorite musician, Bob Marley

No, they’re not my children – they are much too spoiled for that!