Whatever you call your pet, make sure you can shout that name in public without fear of embarrassment.

Don’t ask me why, but I named my first cat Doris. Daft, eh?

Years later, when I was moving around too much to give Doris the secure home she deserved, I popped her in a cat box and took her on a National Coach westwards, to live with my father, a man not greatly enamoured of cats. He could never bring himself to call ‘Doris’ out loud.

Consequently, disenfranchised, virtually disowned, Doris acted out, went on wild killing sprees, regurgitated half-eaten mice in the house, scratched his furniture and generally misbehaved. Theirs became a kind of love/hate relationship. He would shout, ‘Gertcha, you bugger!’ and throw cushions at her. Over time, the ‘you bugger’ evolved and softened into a name. Doris became ‘Baggers’. Eventually, when she was granted lap privileges, she even condescended to answer to it.

A friend of mine once had a cat she dubbed ‘Durkheim’ - yes - after the French sociologist, Émile Durkheim. She was from Manchester. ‘Durkheim’ was fond of wandering off.  Those two facts are not directly connected, but anyone who caught an early-evening chorus of ‘DUURK-KEIIIM! Pud! Pud! Pud!’ as it was bellowed up and down our street accompanied by the frantic shaking of a Cat Crunchie box, may have thought so. It was an unforgettable sound.

My in-laws tend to dispense literary pet names. One of their cats was named Jeoffry, after the poem by For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffry by Christopher Smart. Their Jeoffry was just a moggy, but sometimes, in the slight upward tilt of his nose, they imagined the cat had some sense not just of odour, but of the Ode; his name gave Jeoffry pretensions.

Our dog has many names. As well as his real, public one, at home he answers to: Mr Stinks, Ebeneezer Stinks, Eeezastinks, Fizzy Drinks, Tubbins, Snouty, Is-he-snouty? Farty McLarty…

Some of his dog friends have excellently embarrassing monikers: there’s Royston, Merlyn, Angel and Tarquin, to name just a few. Royston is a German Schnauzer. His redoubtable lady owner is German too, and many a doggy heart has quaked to hear the start of the rolling ‘R’ at the top of a good lungful of ‘RRrrroySTON!’

The male half of the couple who own the near-deaf Pekinese, when failing to get a response from a plain, ‘COME HERE!’ is usually forced to holler the dog’s name. He ends up mumbling asides to the other dog owners, ‘It was my wife who wanted to call him ‘Dalai’.

So, prospective pet owners, my advice is, choose that name with care.

(Dog names indeed. Sorry. It’s been a slow week. Cough. Sniff.)

Last Modified : October 20th, 2008 Filed under : notes/asides, tales from the field Navigate : Previous post / Next post