The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,

"It isn't just one of your holiday games;"

Well my husband and I are going back and forth on cat names. I'm stumped! We don't want to choose a name until our kitten arrives but we both have such different taste when it comes to names. Mind you, I'm considering getting a second kitten from the rescue group I volunteer for....he's a beautiful black sweetie!

Right now I'm thinking of these names. The starred ones we both agree on.

Navarre*
Leto*
Sinatra
Wickham
Horatio
Darcy
Ash
Deckard
Bastian
Lir

I would love to hear some cat naming stories....how did you come to name your cats?

I have to ask... is Deckard taken from the movie "Blade Runner?"

JinJin I named after the magical, invisible dog in I Dream of Jeannie (although I probably spelled it wrong). Because she was a feral, she was very good at disappearing...*poof!*

Sabina was one of a long list of names I was trying out. When I got her as a kitten, I kept her in my bedroom. She would hide under the bed, and it took coaxing to get her out. One time I just started saying the names out loud,and when I said "Sabina", she meowed and came to me.

Oh I remember little JinJin - was really cute too

Charlie's name really is Charlie Wonka after the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - he's a chocolate spotted Ocicat and that's the first name that popped in my head when looking for good "chocolate" names

Ling is "LingLing" and she is a magic color changing kitty - born blue tabby/white (entire litter) to a calico. Then at a month old they all changed to blue points with tabby body; then to seal points with tabby body, and by 3 months old all kittens were black/white!

So I thought they would have stayed pointed and gave every kitten an "oriental" name - Ling, Ping & Pong (brothers) and Ying & Yang (sisters).

A lot of my babies came to me with names...But as for kitties that I have named....

Weeble... Named because she has cerebellar hypoplasia. So she wobbles a lot!

Ember (is a friend of mines cat that I named when I was fostering her) - She was born without eyes. But she had this incredible spark about her. She just had this glowing little happy personality. So I thought Ember was the perfect name for her.

Yuki (a rescue who now lives with my mom) - When I first got him he was a white little fluff with the faintest siamese markings. So I named him yuki which is Japanese for snow

Mika - (my siberian husky) When she was younger she had a black mask around her eyes and was constantly getting into trouble. so we named her Mika, which is american indian for "Intelligent raccoon"

Maneki neko - (Maneki for short) Came to me as a severe case of neglect. He had soooo many fleas. The fleas had drained him to the point of death. (his previous owner couldn't afford to buy flea products) He had to have a blood transfusion to save his life. Meneki Neko means literally "Beckoning Cat"; also known as Welcoming Cat, Lucky Cat, Money cat or Fortune Cat. It is a fairly common japanese sculpture. I thought it was suiting since he was a very lucky cat to be alive, and he cost me a small fortune.

And then there is the newest....

Cillian - Cillian was hit by a car whe he was 3 months old. A kind hearted woman stopped after seeing him hit and rushed him in the the vets office I work at. SHe didn't have the money to help him after hearing that both of his back legs were badly broken and would require a lot of surgery, if he even made it through the night. So I took him in. It all came down to how hard this little one was willing to fight for his life in those first critical 24 hours after being hit. He was in shock so we weren't sure what his outcome would be... By the next day, he up and was trying to walk on his broken legs. He had fought hard for his life. So we named him Cillian, which is Irish for little warrior.

When we adopted our cat, my husband and I couldn't agree on her name-nothing "felt right". Our poor cat was nameless for about 2 weeks. Whenever I would talk to her, I would call her my little baby because she's so little..3 yrs old and weighs 5 1/2 lbs. She started responding to this name so I thought I would make it cute and call her Babee. My husband agreed that it fit her perfectly. A little cheesy but it works for us.

Skye- was my foster kitty and had 6 kittens. I always name my fosters with themes. So I looked up different things. Finally settled on names that meant moon, stars or sun. Well I ran out of girl names so I decided to name her Skye because all those things are in the sky. LOL

Calamity- Is actually Calamity Jane. I had already chosen outlaw names for her kittens. Butch Cassidy, Sundance Kid and Black Jack Ketchum. So I needed to come up with a female outlaw. Came up with Belle Star but sounded to sweet for her so I changed it to Calamity Jane and was going to call her Jane but shes such a mess I decided on calling her Calamity instead.

Ike had a list of name's kind of like yours...I chose Ike because he was my favorite character on South Park (lol...I think I'm crazy.) I picked that one mostly because none of my "classical" names matched her kitten spunk and craziness! Also, obviously, I thought she was a boy for a while...

Most of mine have named themselves over the years, although, most of the ones now have themes so they were pre-named.

Noel was obtained about Christmas time, hence Noel.

Joyeux was also obtained around Christmas time (dec. 23), and it matches Noel. And yes, I do have little candle holders around my house that say Joyeux Noel. Her registered name is Joyeuse Etoille Petite, or some such that I'd actually have to look at. She is actually "Joyeous Little Star", named in combination for Christmas/Noel and that her sister is called Moon (which is not actually Moon, but from the movie The Mummy, Anck-su-namun, but called Moon for short), and her brother was Apollo Sun..and also that she was the kitten we got after Tavi was murdered.

Pogue was born on St. Paddy's day. He is registered as Pog Mo Hon, or Gaelic for "kiss my butt". He had to have an Irish name. And since we've been going with holiday themes..

Khan was Shere Khan for Kipling's Jungle Book, as is Bagheera, and when we had Tavi, she was Tavi for Rikki Tikki Tavi, and a more mongoose like cat you've never seen. After she died we stopped the Kipling theme and move back to the holidays.

I like the name Ash for a black kitty

Trout got her name simply because I think Troutfish are cute

I had Oliver for 3 days pondering over a name. I looked into his lovely olive green eyes, and figured it out! OLIVER!

Tripod was named by someone else. If I named him it would have been Lionel because he purrs so loud (like a Lionel train).

I agree, choosing a name can be very difficult!

Asher: When we took him to the vet for his first visit when we first found him the vet asked if we had a name. We said no, not yet. She said that she liked Ashes, since he's all gray. My SO thought Ashes sounded too girly for a boy so he came up with Asher. I wasn't too fond of it at first, but now I love it. I don't think any other name would have suited him as well.

Jack: I had the hardest time naming him. It took a few weeks. I made a list of names that I liked but he just "looked" like a Jack to me. So Jack it is!

Cute stories!

Mooch and Noodles were named for the comic strip Mutts! (My fav!!!) It's about a cat (Mooch, a tuxedo cat but a boy instead of a girl like my Moochie!) and a dog and all thier escapades and things. Noodles is another cat in the strip, but not all grey like my Noodles is. I just think the name is so cute! Plus the grey kitty in the strip is named Sourpuss and I didn't want Noodles to be a sourpuss, though sometimes she sure can be! If you've never read the strip, check out the website: www.muttscomics.com Or check out my avatar....

I think our paper ran that one for about a month. They were trying out different ones, and that one wasn't real popular. I thought it was kind of cute.

Mistoflees was named because "He is small, he is quiet, he is black, from his ears to the tip of his tail". At least he was black. He's got white hairs in him, which I'm assuming are grey hairs (he's 15).

We got Sneaky Pie from my mil. She said she was a grey cat with white paws. They live 600 miles from us, so I didn't see the cat until they brought her to us. The kids thought Sneaky would be a good name. At the time I was reading all of the Rita Mae Brown books, and I thought that my Sneaky Pie would look like that one.

Nope. Sneaky doesn't look like her. And at that point, the kids were adamant about naming her Sneaky. So the name stuck. The REAL Sneaky Pie is a grey tabby. My Sneaky Pie is a Tortishell Tabby. But she's got Sneaky's "cattitude"

But a more appropriate name is Pewter, b/c she's got Pewter's weight problem

Haha, I love the stories! Thanks for posting them!

And I too love the Rita Mae Brown books (and the older Lillian Jackson Braun books) so I recognized Sneaky Pie's name.

Here is a story of naming from when I was younger:
Our silly neighbors never got their female cat fixed and often forgot to feed her. Eventually she went feral and kept producing kittens! One of the older kittens kept coming over to our house and flirting with us. After taking care of him for a month we finally asked if we could keep him and they said yes. Shortly thereafter we wound up catching three kittens from her most recent litter! (all four got fixed asap!)

With four kitties in our house we pondered what to name them and due to my fascination with Dumas at the time they were dubbed Porthos, Athos, Aramis and D'Artagnan. They are by far the most wonderful cats we've ever had.

Our two kittens were named after much discussion and brainstorming!

Luna is named after Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter. A bit of an eccentric but generally harmless!
Neko was a name i came across which i thought was simply unusual and memorable (Japanese for cat).

We know we have a girl and a boy (they are still with mum and arrive with us on saturday) so i hope their personalities actually truly match their little names! Very excited about their arrival

Ali x

We gave Willow her name not 5 minutes after we got in the car to take her home. Bad mistake. She's as far from a PussyWillow tree as you can get, not at all gentle and sweet and calm.

Buffy went a month while I fought to figure out the right name for her. We only went with Buffy because my family was getting fed up with calling her "kitty" all the time, so they pressured me to go with "Buffy" (which made sense, since we already had a Willow, something you BtVS fans understand, lol). Turns out Buffy was the perfect name for her, as she's fiesty, strong, bold, curious, intelligent, has a sense of humour, loves attention, has a great energy level, etc. There isn't any other name that could fit her more perfectly.

Molly went two months without a name, though that was partly because we didn't believe that we were keeping her (we were just giving her a home until her lost owners came to claim her, which they never did). But after a couple weeks of her being in our home, we tried to name her just so we could stop calling her "kitty" or "the baby," but Molly was just horrible to name. Nothing fit. She was sweet, calm, laid-back, easy-going, yet girlish, curious, CUTE. You got the sense that if she were human, she'd be that chubby girl who's shy and shuffles her toe in the dirt while shyly looking around her, but has an actual circle of friends (maybe not the popular kids, but if Molly were human, she'd be in elementary school, always the same age, and as far as I remember, cliques didn't show up until middle school, lol). But one day, when we were frustrated with not being able to find Molly's name, and beginning to give up and no longer really care, my sister uttered the name Molly (she was referring to the doll on Big Comfy Couch, a show we LOVED as kids, and we have the doll ourselves). Me and my sister paused, looked at each other, my sister shrieked, and we knew we had found Molly's name. It varies from person to person, of course, but to us, "Molly" is the chubby kid who's really sweet and kind and considerate, who's really easy-going while a little shy, always wanting to help others and get them involved in whatever game she's playing. That fits Molly perfectly!

Jake, my dog, was named for either (or both) the main character in a book series I was in love with at the time ("Help! I'm Trapped in ......'s Body!"), and/or a racehorse jockey I was a big fan of at the time (Jake Barton). We got Jake 9 years ago, so my memory is a little fuzzy, lol. I don't know if Jake fits his name, since I don't really have an idea of what a Jake looks and acts like. It's just a name to use when calling him, but it's cuter and cooler than something like Henry or Frank, lol