Names and pets (also, people). Also,some speech vs. writing

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When I was young I gave pets name like "Sam" and "Boomer", which were not the height of imaginative at all. I think I would have been more likely to name them after interests if I didn't feel like my interests were frowned upon all the time.

I have named pets after special interests (like Pooka, because of my interest in roleplaying games) and I think one cat was pre-named for me (Raven), but it fit him I guess (he was all black).



I hear you on the name feeling wrong. And I do a lot of that pausing and forgetting. I am better than I used to be, and I seem to have little trouble if I'm covering ground I've written about.

I think fondly of my beloved female cat (long, long gone now). Her name was Hypatia.

ruveyn

My sister's boxer dogs, Sophie and Bella.
The names fit perfectly - even though I sometimes call one "fatty" and the other "dimbo". It's only said with affection though because one or the other is having a silly moment, and they're neither fat nor dim.
But Sophie is the more sturdily-built and Bella is just so sweet and dippy sometimes.

A friend had a Maine Coon called Penfold and I've never heard a cat sing until I met him.
But that's just what he did.

Yeah. But I call my cats by name, and the dogs I know. I find animals much more understandable than people, though. No false signals, maybe?

I do find cats much easier to understand than people. They are straightforward and not very deceptive. Tricky, maybe, but even when they're tricky they wear their intentions in the open.

Yeah, that's it for me -- no guile, no decipt; everything is "straight up."

It also seems like I tend to understand their instincts better than people usually do. I.e. when I used to ride my bike a lot, sometimes a dog would come running at me. I frequently saw other cyclists panic and try to kick or outrun the dog (neither of which usually worked, and sometimes resulted in a fall).

OTOH, I would try to slow down or stop, so the chase-the-fast-moving-object instinct would turn off. The dog would usually stop short and look around like, "I was chasing something, but where'd it go?... Oh hey, who are you? How ya doin'?"

It surprises me how often other people react to dogs as if the dogs are being threatening. To me, a playful dog is clearly different from an angry or vicious dog. I don't think most domesticated dogs are out to hurt anyone, they're just doing what dogs do. It is sad that people kick at them, as that will do the dogs no good at all.

I've had dogs run up to me - being friendly - and I know the body language to use to let them know I'm safe? And their owners start apologizing profusely as if the dogs are frightening or intimidating, but they just wanted to meet me.

Anyway, yeah. Animals, they're easier for me than people.

All my cats have names, though I usually call them nouns like "boy", "girl", "old man", "gremlin", "little monster". Generally I call them by name when I want their attention (they actually obey me when I do so). And it always take me some days to think of names for pets.

Perfect!
How to distract a busy dog and turn it into a friendly dog.

I went through a phase as a kid where I named my stuffed animals after animate objects. I had a teddy bear named "Chair" and a cat named "Couch". With my Lion King obsession, everyone was afraid that if I had kids, I was going to name them Simba, Nala and Timon. Timon IS an actual person's name so I don't see what all the hubabalo was about. Nala is Zulu for "good luck". http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2932608.stm Keenan Ivory Wayans' has a daughter named Nala. Aparently when his wife was pregnant, the older daugher insisted her new sister be named Nala because she loved Lion King so much. When the baby was born, the parents gave in and named the new baby Nala Wayans. Anyway, what's so wrong with naming a kid after a fictional character? Aparently Isabella was the most popular girls name a year or two ago and Edward was the most popular boy's name. Titan A.E. is another obsession of mine and the main character's name is Cale. My brother's friend has a boy named Cale and they brought him over to play with my neice and nepphews once. Whenever someone called his name, it took every fiber of my being not to giggle. I evetualy asked the parents how they thought of the name and that it was the name of a character in a movie. They thought I meant Dakota Fanning's character in dreamer at first and I told them Titan A.E.. The dad said that did sound famalir and is probably where they first heard the name but somehow I doubt they were such "After Earth Addicts" they named him after a cartoon. My neice used to go to school with a girl named Cale and actualy went up and asked her if she had found the Titan and to be wary of the drej after I suggested she do so. The girl obviously had no idea what my neice was talking about and I don't think my neice would have found it as amusing as I would have.

Last edited by PunkyKat on 14 Jan 2011, 8:07 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I don't recall ever naming my stuffed animals, I just knew "who" they were.

Although, you know, I kind of wish I had named them after some kind of idisoyncratic scheme like that.

I'm very particular about my bid's names and I sort of categorized them without realizing it. I have society finches and they sort of remind of of birds that blend in with bark and trees and forests so I gave them all names like Hedgeapple, Cedar. My cockatiels were given very dignified names because of their crown feathers so I named them Plato, Socrates, GreyTalon. I categorized them as intelligent, philosophical, magical so I gave them those names. I could always relate better to animals than people. People are so much harder to read, I find. Now with people's names, I always had difficulty with them. When I was a child, I didn't use people's names. I'm not sure why. I knew their names but I refused to use them. I would say things like, "hey," to get their attention. As an adult, at my jobs I would have difficulty with finding people because I had a hard time matching name to face. I have trouble with recognizing people's faces and at times all the men in the warehouse I worked at once all looked alike, so when my boss asked me to fetch someone, I'd be really scared because I had a hard time matching face to name. That can get awkward, believe me!

I (almost) NEVER call anyone by their name (and when I do I'm sure there's some special reason). I HATE saying names and avoid it at all cost, to the point of making myself look pretty stupid.

Ooh - another bird person!
I have ten Zebras, one chestnut society finch with the most beautiful eyes (my other chocolate one died suddenly), two Hecks, three Gouldians, a male gold-breasted waxbill (Amandava subflava), and a breeding pair of Cubans.

But I haven't named any of them... They just seem too small for a name, somehow.
Maybe I should try something bigger!