How did you pick the names for your cats?

My dh named our first cat together Peyton....after Peyton Manning lol I didnt have a choice. Blayze got her name because she blazes through the house 24/7! Knox got his name from DH as well he is named after Johnny Knox from the Chicago bears! Though if he makes it through this I am considering a name change for him to Leo because so far he has fought very hard for his life and needs a good strong name!

Joji  - she was living in the property when I moved in back in '97ish. Strangely, she responded to the name almost immediately.

Ichi, Ni, San  - Originally they were orphaned kittens and they were suppose to find homes when they were old enough. I like the Japanese language so I named them in numerical order and felt that I would not get too attached by naming them that way. Well, I was wrong 

Buddy - He is younger than Joji but going into his senior years. He was rescued along with another adult stray, Ashley(RB). I wanted to simplify things by alphabetically naming them. Buddy likes his name.

Margaret Ann ("Marge")/Peggy the Puma (her nose and build are like a puma; Peggy is a diminutive of Margaret): after my dear MIL; we both share the middle name Ann/Anne (I'm the Anne)

Loki (Flores): After the Norse god of mischief. Boy, we nailed THAT one correctly! Flores="flowers" in Spanish. He attacks flowers and plants, so I can't have those in the house.

Mari/Little Miss/Cosette Arabella/Little Baby Squeaks: after the woman who found her and her siblings (The Marilyn part!!!)

Rosalie/Rosie Posy/Rosie Dozy: I love that name

Kara/Butterscotch Kitty/BScotch K (her rap name!): Ditto. Also, "Butterscotch" due to her coat color.

Gemma Pearl/The Gemster/Jeepster/G.P.: Ditto

Lucinda/Cindy/Lucie/Cinders/Rawalpindi Cindy: Ditto, plus, the name suited her

Phoenix/Nixie/Noodles/Mr. Sexy: After the chemical factory where he was born in a storage shed (with Mari, above, and Leo, below)

BJ/Leo/Leofwyn/Kingsley/Lion King: BJ=Baby Jasmine. We had a Maine Coon, Jasmine, at the time; BJ resembles what we think she may have looked like as a kitten.  We later decided that Leo was a bit more manly; Leofwyn was the name of King Harold's brother, who died with him at the Battle of Hastings. I thought it meant "lion" in some fashion; it doesn't. I think it's Anglo-Saxon or Welsh for, "Dear/beloved one" or something. BJ does look very leonine, hence all those lion nicknames.

my current cat is called bast after the feline goddest bastet, sometimes i call him bastin, but prefer bast origanly

the name was going to be for a girl cat but when we found out that he was a boy we stuck with the name anyway.

I have two orange cats, Eric and Sarah.

Sarah was named after Sarah Ferguson, The Duchess of York.  She was first famous redhead who came to mind.  Sarah's name means "princess' or "Princess of God," so her nickname is "Princess."  When I got her at three months of age, she was a skinny cat with huge bat ears.  Her other nickname is "Batwoman."  ("Bat Girl" sounded too much like "Bad Girl.")  She grew into those bat ears, and became a beautiful cat, with white right legs and orange left legs with little white socks on the toes.  Her right front leg reminds me of the long white gloves Jackie Kennedy used to wear on formal occasions.  She has medium-length hair and luminous green eyes.  Sarah has a middle name -- Elizabeth, and she is also known as "Her Highness."  I tell her she is beautiful more than 20 times a day, and believe me, she knows it!  I get a kiss or she rubs up against my legs when I tell her that.  She also closes her eyes briefly as acknowledgement when I say, "Sarah, you're SO beautiful."

Eric was named after the Viking, Eric the Red.  At 18 pounds of solid muscle, he is the feline version of Eric the Red, who, according to legend, was a very big guy.  My Eric's middle name is James.  Eric knows his name so well that when we were watching a documentary on Eric Clapton, my boy meowed every time he heard his name.  He also enjoys watching conductors on PBS' "Great Performances."  I guess the motion of the arms intrigues him.  He is highly intelligent -- street smart.  I tell him he is a little boy in a cat costume, and if I unzipped that coat, a little red-haired boy would appear.  He has amber eyes, dark orange tiger stripes on his body, especially from his eyes to the sides of his face.  He also looks like he's wearing a V-neck sweater which shows the white fur on his chest.  He has short hair.  He meows when I tallk to him.  He has a sweet spirit, and is very affectionate.  He also likes to hog the remote -- a typical guy thing, isn't it?  He sleeps like a human -- head on the pillow, lying on his side.  He sees the way I sleep, so let's copy mom!  There's a guy sleeping next to me, but he has four legs and a tail.  Sarah curls up on the corner of my pillow.  I hear her purring as we're going to sleep.  She looks so content, she's almost smiling.

My cats are cultured cats.  When I leave the house, I leave the stereo on a jazz or classical station, and they watch "Great Performances," "Masterpiece Theatre" or "Live at Lincoln Center."  They listen to opera on satellite radio.  My mom says a lot of humans aren't introduced to that much culture.  Well, they're my kids, so why not?

Well the first cat that I named was cat that came to my family as a stray about 13 years ago. Despite being super skinny, she seemed to have a "higher than thou" attitude and she was so dainty and graceful so I made up a name that sounded like a name that would belong to a snooty royal, Tasja Borshe (Ta-sZah Boor-Zay) forgive my poor attempt at phonics

The second cat I named was Ghibli, my dad found him as a tiny kitten at his work and it was my turn to name a cat.  I was (and still am) a fan of Studio Ghibli and so I named the tiny black kitten Ghibli.

I let my boyfriend name our kitten that we adopted from the local humane society. The name he came with was Carlo, then from Carlo my boyfriend wanted to name the kitten Silverfox (after his favorite snow cone flavor) then he decided that it was too long of a name and then he finally decided on the name Chacho.  He has always joked around calling family members, or myself that when he's teasing about us doing stuff for him. He would always clap and say "Hey Chacho" like we were his waiter or something, so he thought it would be a funny name for our cat lol.

TheMBCat said:

 Silverfox (after his favorite snow cone flavor)

Click to expand...

EXCELLENT flavor

I have a friend who no joke, named her cats after phones. Whatever phone she had at the time she got the cat, would be its name

So far she has Nokia, Apple, and Droid-Man (for android) lol

My first cat that I had as a child was called Högni. That is also a word for a male cat and often uses as a catname, and also a rarely used human male name. My fathers name I Jon and here in Iceland we don't have "family names", but instead people's  last names are the first names of their mother or father, with the "son" or "daughter" added to it.  So the cat was called Högni Jonsson for fun. There was one man with that name in the phonebook, who was a ship pilot, so he (my cat) had a "full name" as Högni Jonsson, ship pilot.

My next cat as a kid was Lóri. There is a sweet word for a kitty, kisulóra, means "sweet kitty". That is a feminine word, but my kitty was male, so we called him Lóri, a short version of the masculine noun.

My first cat as an adult, who was my soulmate, was my dear Pollýanna. She passed in 2008 from cancer. Her full name was Pollýanna Scarlet. Pollýanna, as the children's book Pollýanna and her philosophy has been my favorite since I was a kid, and Scarlet as Scarlet O'Hara reminded me of a cat....she did whatever she wanted, when she wanted....IF she wanted. Still she was graceful and beautifiul,  like my Pollýanna was.  I often called her "Púsla" (pronounced "Poosla), which originally started out as "Pooh", because I loved her so much (you, who know the story behind Winnie the Pooh, know where I got that idea.)

Feykirófa has a name of a female troll from an old Icelandic folks tale. If you look at the word in the name, it really means "swirling tale". When she was born, my oncle had decited that all the kittens would have a name starting with an F, as her mother's name was Filippia and their other cat's name was Finnbogi (which is human male name, just as Filippia). When my Feykirófa came out, her tale came first and for a while nothing else happened, but her tale was just outside and swirled around, untill the rest of her was born.

Our youngest one  is Doppa.  She is all black, but her name means "spot". We found that quite funny, to call her "spot", as she didn't have any. But when she is all curled up, sleaping on the sofa, she looks like a black spot on the sofa...or these days when out in the snow.

When I was looking for a cat, I was planning on getting an adult female cat. I was going to name it Starla, after my favorite Smashing Pumpkins song. Instead, I fell in love with a little boy kitten with the weirdest expression ever! His foster mommy called him Jack, but I knew he needed something a little more... different... to go with his interesting looks. I came up with a lot, but nothing seemed right. Growing up in the 90s, I was practically raised on Mario Brothers, and I thought Luigi would be cute. But still, it didn't seem right. Then Bowser popped up in my head, and it was perfect. He started responding to it immediately!

We named our cat, Monk, after the tv show. Monk the detective was quirky and our Monk when he was a baby had some very odd habits as well!

My granddaughter had a Ferret named Isabella so when Bella came into our lives she wanted to name her and Bella it was. And with our black and white kitten which we got from 1 of our daughters litters, Thunder was born. But we call her Key-Key for short and she answers to it. She seems to like it.

dejolane

Nero - His name was "Stone" when we adopted him from the shelter. But since he was all black, 'stone' just didn't fit. Looked up black in other languages, and Nero was amongst it. Some people think we named him after Nero the Roman Emperor though :lol3: We've been calling him "Roz" lately and I think he resents the fact its pronounced like "rose"!

Neko - His name was "Jim Bob" at the shelter. Poor boy :lol3: I knew that name wasn't staying with him, so again, a name in a different language. Chose Neko, for "cat" in Japanese. It fits him. I call him "Neeks" most of the time.

Hoshi - His name was "Star" when I adopted him. But the fact he was a muscular black kitty (with a white 'star' on his chest, which is why his foster mom named him that), "Star" seemed too girly. More internet searching and the choice was between "Asteri" and "Hoshi", both meaning star in different languages. Tried out both names with him, and he always answered to Hoshi. His name is usually shortened to Hosh or Hosh-Kit. I miss him My ex kept him when we split.

I also had "prep-school names" for them... Nerosley, Nekoford, and Hoshleton :lol3:

Katina - Looked up names in other languages. Female kitten in Italian was "gattina" and my ex thought I said Katina. It stuck, and turned out it was Lithuanian!

Monte (RB baby, Katinas brother) - my dad suggested Monte because my ex had a Monte Carlo.


Foster kittens I had: Soot, Asphalt, and Diesel. All of them were black kittens, and I had to name them quickly in order to be part of a foster network here (the same one I adopted Hoshi from). Soot and Asphalt are both black, and Diesel exhaust is black (because its soot!)

Current family cats that live with my parents: Chassis, Caliper, & Tailpipe; and Past kitties: Muffler, Spark Plug, Tune Up, Mag, Battery, Turbo, and Camshaft all were named because my dad owned an auto repair shop and were strays we took in. Chassis was adopted from a vets office, Caliper from a recycling center, and Tailpipe from a vets office, but we kept with the tradition of naming them after car parts.

Thunder looks like he has a Tuxedo on too.

dejolane

Bailey got his name at the shelter and I thought he looked like a Bailey so I kept it.

Grover is named after the Sesame Street character because he makes an adorable noise that sounds like Grover and he was my favorite as a kid.