If you’ve ever struggled to come up with a name for your new pet, you’re not alone. In fact, there are hundreds of online articles devoted just to helping people choose a pet name.
Whether you’re looking for something trendy or something unusual, you’re bound to get some inspiration from these websites. Here at Hillcrest, with a database of just over 4000 active patients, I thought that it would be fun to see what names our clients have chosen over the years when naming their pet.
When I first started in the Veterinary field over 20 years ago, most pets (particularly cats) were often given names that described their appearance. Fluffy, Blackie, Ginger and Tiger come to mind. No doubt as you read these names you visualized a long-haired cat, a black one, a light orange one and a tabby. Pretty straightforward and effective. In the 1990’s television and movie character names became very trendy. In fact, in the few years after the Lion King came out in 1994, we ended up with 26 cats named Nala. The Adventures of Otis and Milo resulted in 18 Otis dogs and a whopping 73 Milo cats. Moving into the new century, we saw a spike in Dora (12) Loki (9), Thor (7) and Marley(12). Recently, we’ve had Elsa, Tyrion and Khaleesi make their appearance.
With pets considered family, it’s no surprise that there is a growing number of pets that are given human names. We have Pete, Steve, Wade, Olivia, Jenna and multiple Emmas on file. As for the rest of our clientele, a quick peek at the pet name list shows that the majority of clients fall into one of 3 categories when it comes to choosing a pet name: Colour related names, fashionable/trendy names and finally, truly unique one of a kind names.
Popular Names
The most popular pet names in our database have two things in common: they are all two syllables long and end in y, I or, ie. They’re easy to rhyme off and won’t embarrass you if you’re calling your pet inside at 5 in the morning. Chances are you already know a dog or cat with one of the following names;
Colourful Names
The days of Ginger, Boots and Blackie are slowly fading away. Clients have come up with a new and vast palette of colour related pet names and I have chosen a few of them here;
Unique Names
And that brings me to my favourite list: the original and one-of-a-kind pet names. Sometimes these names are thought up by children and other times there is a wonderfully funny story behind the name. Here are some of the genuinely unique names that I have come across at Hillcrest.
As pet names continue to evolve, I look forward to meeting the next generation of puppies and kittens with all of their unique, colourful or trendy names. It might even be fun to update this list in another 20 years.
Written by Jen Barre, RVT
