Feline Fun Friday – What’s in a Cat Name?

If you read my Klepto Cat and/or Calico Cat Mystery series, you know how much fun I have using cat-related terms in my titles and coming up with interesting cat names. I thought it would be fun to talk about our cat names and what inspires them.

A few years ago a neighbor took in a tiny kitten that showed up on her doorstep (despite the fact that she has three large dogs). When she’d touch the kitten, he would purr, thus his eventual name, Purrsy. Other cat-related descriptive names might include Whiskers, Bootsie (Boots, Socks), Mittens, Miss Kitty, Puss, Tom, Leo.

We name cats for their color: Cali or Patches (for a calico), Blackie (we just talked about black cats this week), Marmalade—Butterscotch—Pumpkin, Stripey, Smokey, snowflake. We might choose names from a cat character, Garfield, Nala, Simba, Felix. Or we just use a name we like the sound of—Daisy, Katy, Max. I thought our tortie had an old-fashioned look to her and I gave her an old-fashioned-sounding name—Sophie. One cat we rescued from a shelter came with the same name as a cat we already had—Katy. That wasn’t going to work, so we needed to rename her, even though she was already six-months old.

We started throwing names out at her. Nothing was sticking, until I noticed that she spent a lot of time in the kitchen with us. If we were in the kitchen, so was this cat. One evening I burst out in song, “Someone’s in the kitchen with Dinah.” Yup, her name became Dinah and she wore it well.

People wonder how our calico got her name. Olivia came with the name. Evidently a volunteer at the rescue shelter gave her the name in honor of a cat she once knew. I thought it fit her purrfectly, so we kept it.

How did you name your cats?

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5 Responses to Feline Fun Friday – What’s in a Cat Name?

  1. Betsy Pompi says:

    I had a lovely calico who was very cuddly, so she became CeeCee for Cuddly Calico. The kitty who came after her (and who recently went to the Rainbow Bridge) was rescued on my Husband’s (Lou) birthday and became Lucy as a combination of his name and mine (Betsy). My current ginger is Zoey and came with the name. I have often wondered how she got her name.

  2. Wendy Cook says:

    Our Chooch is named after the Phillies baseball catcher Carlos Ruiz – it was his nickname
    The runt of the litter is Bella – so small and dainty. And their gray sister is Griz (shortened from Grizabella). We had a Stanley (big ice hockey fans). Hitchcock was named after the Flyers coach at the time we rescued him. We had a Hootie and a Frisky and cannot forget Nermal (from Garfield comic strip). Boz was named after Boz Scaggs!
    We have had fun naming our fur babies.

  3. Lori says:

    My daughter found a tiny calico kitten hanging on the screen door when she left for school one morning. She was so tiny her meow sounded like meep so she became Meepers. We had her 12 years before she crossed the rainbow bridge.

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