What is the story behind how your pets got their name?

  • My cats are Hiccup, Bramble, and Mushroom.

    Hiccup is named after the guy from How to Train Your Dragon, Bramble was found in a bramble, and Mushroom is a white cate with a grey spot on her head.

    We’re quite original.

    Their nicknames are Honk (I purposely put a voice crack on the “o”), Bams, and Mushy.

  • Our cuddle bug. This guy got his name because driving down the road from the beagle rescue shelter after meeting him, one of my teens started singing a song from The Muppet Christmas Carol: “We’re Marley and Marley, oooooohhh…”

  • my first dog as an adult was named gambit because my partner at the time was reading comic books, and gambit was in them. such a good name!

    loki is the second dog i got as an adult, also named after the marvel character. couldn’t find an x-men name that fit him.

    jean grey… well, you see the theme yet? i really wanted a jubilee, but she’s so much more of a jean bean.

  • Mine was a rescue, the daughter of the woman who was fostering her named her after Katniss Everdeen, but she called her Cuteness Everdeen and it just fit.

    She has an expletive for a middle name when she wakes me up for the fourth night in the row…

  • Boog: We went round and round for a week or two when we adopted our cat as a kitten 8 years ago. Her name at the rescue was Hansel. She was a little snotty from her vaccinations and she really liked giving us kisses on our noses and right above our lips. We named her Booger Ann (BoogBoog).

    SamSam: he found us when his family moved out and left their two cats behind. He showed up on the porch one day. He was about 1yo and skinny, so I started calling him Slinky Sam. Slinky Sam got very round so now he’s SamSam TubbTubbs, Samuel Rotten, or the Grey Bastard.

    Bitsy Beans: Bitsy was originally found in an abandoned apartment complex in the dead of winter. She was only half of her healthy weight, skin and bones, and terrified. Her foster rescue named her Gypsy Lu since she had been wandering. We changed her name to Bitsy Beans (but she was almost named Lizzo because she’s a little thick, sassy, and needs tempo). Now she’s my Beanken Boo, BittelyBeepBop.

  • Our calico was already named Eloise when we adopted her and we loved it so much we kept it.

    Our ragdoll is officially named Matilda, to try and keep the children’s book theme going, but we only ended up calling her Fruff, because well, she’s very fruffy.

  • We have a cat called Groot, for no other reason than we’d seen Guardians of the Galaxy and my wife really took to the character. Our Groot’s a girl, but that’s okay because all Groots are Groot.

    We also have two rabbits. One’s called Peanut because he looks like a peanut (well, less so now he’s older), and one called, err, Jim. My wife’s a vet, and was looking after him at home on behalf of a pet shop during COVID due to a respiratory issue. Jim was the name the shop gave him. We both decided we wanted to keep him, and the name had stuck by that point. We got ourselves Peanut to keep him company.

  • My golden retriever is named Siena. Absolutely everyone immediately thinks it’s because of her color, which is very red. I then have to explain that actually she was bright white as a puppy and she was named after Siena, Italy hah. It just ended up working out and not being entirely random.

    On the other hand, my Aussie is named Bessie because she is splotched like a cow…