How did you name your cats?

On 16/11/2010 02:38, Christina Websell wrote:
Unfortunately, Boyfie got his name because he appeared to be KFC's
boyfriend, the only cat she would allow in her garden and wandered behind
her like an apprentice. It stuck although I did try to rename him Gideon at
one point.
That did not work so his name will always be Boyfriend
How did your cats get their names?

A long timme ago, when I erad The Tempest for the first time, I decided
I would name a cat Miranda one day. I thought it would be a tabby, and I
would call her Randi, because that means 'stripey' in Swedish.

Fast-forward many years. I found myself the new Meowmie of a little
Russian Blue kitten who had been named Cashmere (all her siblings had
names of types of cloth beginning with 'c' but the only other one I can
remember now is Chenille). She was called Mere for short. I called her
Mere and then Mir-Mir for a time. I did want to find a proper name for
her. Then one day I suddenly recalled my decision. OK, this wasn't a
tabby (except for the faint stripes along her tail), but Miranda would
be a fine name for such a bautiful little girl. I said it aloud, and she
looked at me from across the room where she was doing something else.
She still reacts to her name, though Mir-Mir is more likely to get her
running to me.

Then I decided to get her a kitten, so she wouldn't try to play with
poor old Frank all the time. I soon decided to continue with the The
Tempest theme, but it took some time for me to decide if I should use
Ariel, Ferdinand or Caliban. But once I got him home, it was pretty
obvious which it would be. He certainly was no airy sprite like Ariel,
and he was no prince Ferdinand that Miranda fell in love with at first
glance. No, she hated him when he first came to live with us. He was
also obsessed with food and seemed earth-bound with his stubby short
legs, so Caliban it was!

Frank was named after Frank Zappa because he had a little black square
on his chin, just like Zappa's goatee. I didn't name him - his mother's
human did - but I thought it an excellent name for a cat so I kept it.
Nikki was named after Prince's Darling Nikki (I couldn't think of any
famous black woman with half a white moustache like Nikki's ).

--
Marina, Miranda and Caliban.
In loving memory of Frank and Nikki.

On Tue, 16 Nov 2010 00:38:39 +0000, Christina Websell wrote:

Unfortunately, Boyfie got his name because he appeared to be KFC's
boyfriend, the only cat she would allow in her garden and wandered
behind her like an apprentice. It stuck although I did try to rename
him Gideon at one point.
That did not work so his name will always be Boyfriend How did your cats
get their names?

Tweed

Childhood cats, and cats belonging to my parents:

Mumpsey: calico female, adopted a few days before my sister and I both
came down with mumps

Tige: big yellow tomcat

Timothy Tiger: yellow tomcat, named after a character in a children's book

Timothy Tiger II (soon shortened to Second Timothy, as in the Bible):
another yellow tomcat, adopted after the first Timothy Tiger disappeared

Patches: calico female, with lots of orange and light-brown patches of fur

Tinkerbelle: silver tabby female, named after the Peter Pan character

Kentucky Belle: another silver tabby female, daughter of Tinkerbelle. My
parents originally gave her to my uncle (who named both of his cats Kitty
Puss); they re-adopted her, and changed her name, after my uncle died.

My cats:

Annabel Lee: female orange tabby, named after the Edgar Allen Poe poem,
and to keep up the "Belle" naming tradition

Katie: very large tuxedo female, named by her original catslave, and
later adopted as an adult by me

Cinders: small, mostly-gray calico, named by her original catslave, and
later adopted as an adult by me, along with Katie

--
John F. Eldredge --
"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly
is better than not to think at all." -- Hypatia of Alexandria

jmcquown wrote:
"Christina Websell" wrote in
message ...
Unfortunately, Boyfie got his name because he appeared to be KFC's
boyfriend, the only cat she would allow in her garden and wandered
behind her like an apprentice. It stuck although I did try to rename
him Gideon at one point.
That did not work so his name will always be Boyfriend
How did your cats get their names?

Tweed

Persia told me her name. She'd been with me close to two weeks and I'd
just been thinking of her as "cat". I never really wanted a cat (shame
on me!). And I wasn't entirely sure I was going to keep her. But I
decided I couldn't just keep calling her "cat". One day as she was
walking away from me in the living room towards the kitchen. I was
looking at her, thinking what is your name? The name just popped into my
head. I said, "Persia!" and she turned around and came running back to
me. Oh! Your name is Persia! And she's answered to it ever since

Yes, most of our cats were the same way...they told us their
names. Fearless was an as yet unnamed kitten, doing his
hoolikitten stuff and at one point I turned to look at him doing
something completely outrageous and dangerous and out of my mouth
popped "Why, you are just FEARLESS", and the name stuck.

Jezebel appeared on our deck one day shortly after we moved into
the house we recently lost. We looked at her and said "Who are
YOU?" and she said "I'm Jezebel, and I'm home, thankyouverymuch".
So she was Jezebel.

In fact, for most cats, we've waited for them to tell us their
names, unless they were going to be very short-term fosters.
(You'd be amazed how many people would dump cats at the end of
our road...or, no, you probably wouldn't be, come to think of
it.) We had a pair of brothers we nicknamed Little **** 1 and
Little **** 2, so we wouldn't get tooooo attached. PURRsival was
an obvious name (he was FIV+ so we couldn't keep him, but he went
to a loving home where we were promised-cross-your-heart that he
would NEVER go outside and she would NOT get another cat unless
it, too, was FIV+).

Belle was named by a friend who came over for dinner shortly
after we got her; he watched her watching the parakeet in the
cage on the cage stand and said "Hey, you oughta bell the cat you
know" and my ex-DH and I looked at each other and said "Of
COURSE! Belle. The Cat." The next cat we got was named
Whistle...geeks will get the joke :-)

Vinegar was because she was "full of **** and vinegar" and my
ex-DH wouldn't let me name her **** :-( Brat was, well...you
guessed it.

Louie told John his name. Spooky told us her name, and all three
of the stowaways, after they were born, told us their names
(Tigger, Trouble and Smokey...with an E, thank you). Little Bit
took a long time to tell us her name.

I thought most cats let you know their names...or at least the
one they will answer to and consider their "everyday" name. :-)

Deborah
way too tired to be typing this much

--

"Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the
most shocking and inhumane."-Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Christina Websell" wrote in
message ...
...
How did your cats get their names?

Whisky (RB), because he was Black & White (an old brand of scotch
whisky in the UK).
Fred (RB), just because!
Manfred (RB), because he was a little version of Fred.
Tabs (RB), a polydactyl tabby with an obvious Maine Coon
heritage, because that was his name when he was given to us.
Minstrel (RB) also known as Bloggs, because he was Black & White,
and went wandering and missing for 4 days when we first acquired
him (there was a TV show in the 1960s in the UK, "The Black and
White Minstrel Show").
Mrs Cat (RB), also known as Mitzi,because we'd never been owned
by a female cat before.

--
MatSav

"Phoenix" wrote in message
...
jmcquown wrote:
...
I thought most cats let you know their names...or at least the
one they will answer to and consider their "everyday" name. :-)


Indeed. T S Elliot gad it right -
http://www.heatercats.com/poems/naming.html

--
MatSav

LOL! Your story about MH reminds me of Tawny. He came to us as a kitten.
We had a dog that habitually jumped the fence and ran away. One evening the
dog was gone, and my husband went out in front to call him. The dog didn't
come (until later), but a scrawny, dirty kitten ran up to my husband as
though he were the one being called. My husband, who had grown up with
cats, brought the kitten in. I had never known a cat up close and personal
before. We petted and played with the cat, then put it out. When my
husband went out the next morning, the kitten was still on the front porch,
so we took him in. As I said, I knew nothing about cats. I noticed tiny
nipples, so assumed the cat was a female. S/he was tawny colored, like a
lion, so I thought Tanya Leona would be a good name for her. We called
her/him Tanya until a couple of days later when I saw him washing himself.
His tiny penis was unsheathed, and I realized he was a boy, so Tanya became
Tawny.

--

Joy

A miracle is something that is impossible until it happens. - from "Kids
Rite the Darndest Things" by Art Linkletter

"Storrmmee" wrote in message
...
-violette, because she wa so shy and there is a cartoon called shrinking
violette.
-Tiger because mourice seems so common.
-tv because when a kitten he was all the shades of a black and white tv,
it fits as if this weren't his name it would have been tater, for couch
potato.
-OEJ, one eyed jaquline, because she had an eye infection, and i knew a
radio host who went by one eyed jack and hates cats.
-chester, named by the shelter, dh says his name should be that actor
withe jowels that escapes me atm, the vet says his name should be jake,
and i call him chester the ingester
-barbi, because she was so little and skittish i suggested barberella and
DH vetoed that, so she became barbi,
-Trudi, for intruder kitty, she answers to trudence, and trudi, trudi,
purr machine, done to the shaggy tune.
-MH, originally i thought he was a girl because of his meow and behavior,
he was so very matted we started calling him matta harri... one day while
working on matts, i grabbed yet another matt, pulled it gently away from
his body... evidentally NOT gentle enough, he let me in no uncertian
terms, it was NOT a mat, and he did NOT intend to let me remove it with a
sizzors... so he quickly became mathew harold thanks to dh, as i was at a
los, Lee
"Christina Websell" wrote in message
...
Unfortunately, Boyfie got his name because he appeared to be KFC's
boyfriend, the only cat she would allow in her garden and wandered behind
her like an apprentice. It stuck although I did try to rename him Gideon
at one point.
That did not work so his name will always be Boyfriend
How did your cats get their names?

Tweed

In order (the first five are gone now).

Fuzzbox - He was a fuzzy little kitten, and at the time I was going
out with a guitarist who kept going on about building his own fuzzbox.

Izzi - was already named when we got her.

Fenda - Again, on the guitar theme with a bit of Douglas Adams thrown
in. It's after both Fender and Fenchurch.

Charlie - He just was Charlie, it was obvious. aka Charles Charlie
Charles (Fast Show)

Spooky - terrified, mostly white, feral kitten.

Ripley - parasite infested wanderer (after Alien films). He was almost
named Dougal, after Father Dougal in Father Ted, on account of his
usual air of bewilderment.

McCavity - already named when we got him, presumably from 'Cats' He's
Cav for short, despite a friend's continuing insistence that he should
be Mac.

Annie - flu ridden, manky eyed, starving kitten. "Little Awful
Annie" / "AnnieKitten Skywalker" We wouldn't have called her that if
we'd known we would keep her, as my mother in law was called Anne.
However, we kept the kitten, and her name, and were glad of it after
my beloved mother in law died six months after Annie Kitten came into
our lives. Having Annie around is a little memorial to animal lover
Anne.

Jeanette

On Nov 15, 4:38*pm, "Christina Websell"
wrote:
Unfortunately, Boyfie got his name because he appeared to be KFC's
boyfriend, the only cat she would allow in her garden and wandered behind
her like an apprentice. *It stuck although I did try to rename him Gideon at
one point.
That did not work so his name will always be Boyfriend
How did your cats get their names?

Tweed

The late beloved Isadora showed remarkably balletic leaps when in
pursuit of her cat dancer toy. So she became Isadora which also means
"gift of Isis" Suitable, given the intelligence of the Ancient
Egyptians with regards to cats.

Panther was named Panther because he was all black. (Imaginative, I
know.)

Francesca got named Francesca because I'd been to Italy a few months
before I got her. I have a soft spot in my heart for St. Francis of
Assisi, who was merciful to cats, among other things. I wanted both
to honor St. Francis and give her an Italianate name.

I gave Nina her name simply because I liked it.

Dmitri, who is a very vocal kind of guy, I named after the Russian
baritone, Dmitri Hvorostovsky. Not because I think Hvorostovsky
sounds like a cat, though. =o) And I like the name Dmitri, although
it seems to sometimes degenerate to "You meat-head!" when he does
something annoying.

Melissa

well i liked that story also, MH was such a mess that you really couldn't
even tell for sure where the matts stopped and the cat started, he looked
rather visually according to dh like a little sheep, by the time i got done
dematting him he was nearly bald all over, his tail, head and the bottom
half of his legs is about all that had hair, it was so matted that most of
it had pulled out, blessedly i devised a "blind" way to use sizzors, and
only nicked him once, and now when i see anyone who asks about matts they
get the uber lesson on removing matts, it literally took a year to get even
a short covering of hair... the other blessing is that he only had two or
three places that were sore/irritated open from the mess his fur was,

Lee
"Joy" wrote in message
. ..
LOL! Your story about MH reminds me of Tawny. He came to us as a kitten.
We had a dog that habitually jumped the fence and ran away. One evening
the dog was gone, and my husband went out in front to call him. The dog
didn't come (until later), but a scrawny, dirty kitten ran up to my
husband as though he were the one being called. My husband, who had grown
up with cats, brought the kitten in. I had never known a cat up close and
personal before. We petted and played with the cat, then put it out.
When my husband went out the next morning, the kitten was still on the
front porch, so we took him in. As I said, I knew nothing about cats. I
noticed tiny nipples, so assumed the cat was a female. S/he was tawny
colored, like a lion, so I thought Tanya Leona would be a good name for
her. We called her/him Tanya until a couple of days later when I saw him
washing himself. His tiny penis was unsheathed, and I realized he was a
boy, so Tanya became Tawny.

--

Joy

A miracle is something that is impossible until it happens. - from "Kids
Rite the Darndest Things" by Art Linkletter

"Storrmmee" wrote in message
...
-violette, because she wa so shy and there is a cartoon called shrinking
violette.
-Tiger because mourice seems so common.
-tv because when a kitten he was all the shades of a black and white tv,
it fits as if this weren't his name it would have been tater, for couch
potato.
-OEJ, one eyed jaquline, because she had an eye infection, and i knew a
radio host who went by one eyed jack and hates cats.
-chester, named by the shelter, dh says his name should be that actor
withe jowels that escapes me atm, the vet says his name should be jake,
and i call him chester the ingester
-barbi, because she was so little and skittish i suggested barberella and
DH vetoed that, so she became barbi,
-Trudi, for intruder kitty, she answers to trudence, and trudi, trudi,
purr machine, done to the shaggy tune.
-MH, originally i thought he was a girl because of his meow and behavior,
he was so very matted we started calling him matta harri... one day while
working on matts, i grabbed yet another matt, pulled it gently away from
his body... evidentally NOT gentle enough, he let me in no uncertian
terms, it was NOT a mat, and he did NOT intend to let me remove it with a
sizzors... so he quickly became mathew harold thanks to dh, as i was at a
los, Lee
"Christina Websell" wrote in message
...
Unfortunately, Boyfie got his name because he appeared to be KFC's
boyfriend, the only cat she would allow in her garden and wandered
behind her like an apprentice. It stuck although I did try to rename
him Gideon at one point.
That did not work so his name will always be Boyfriend
How did your cats get their names?

Tweed

On Nov 16, 12:38*am, "Christina Websell"
wrote:
How did your cats get their names?

Speedy Joe was named by the person who had his mother- never did find
out why but as he was almost 6 months when we adopted him it seemed a
bit late to go changing his name

Fugazi- Vietnamese for "Chaos" summed her up perfectly as a kitten she
was into everything and hadn't yet mastered the fact that cats are
supposed to be graceful.

Isis- Dave wanted to call a cat "Redunzel" after the Zappa
instrumental but it didn't suit her, even as a kitten she sat like one
of those Egyptian cat statues so Dave said wasn't there a cat headed
goddess and I said Yeah Bastet but he didn't like the sound of that
and said Wasn't there a Goddess called Isis? I said the top goddess
and he said that sounded just right for her

Redunzel- Dave found a kitten who suited the name he'd planned for
Isis

Sarrasine-comes from the French medieval "Sarrasin" which comes from
"Saracen"- it simply means a dark skinned person and is an ideal name
for a black cat who is very definitely a person

Lesley

Slave of the Fabulous Furballs