We Have Many Names for Our Pets

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

There’s an old proverb that goes, beloved children have many names.

But I think an even more appropriate proverb would be beloved pets have many names.

Because there’s this real creative exuberance that people who live with pets tend to have when we name our animals.

I’m sure you’ve had this experience.

Yeah, we don’t name them once, right?

Right.

Keep naming them and renaming them.

Renaming them and renaming them until they’re unrecognizable.

And we’ve been talking about that on our Facebook group, and there were some great examples there.

Deanna wrote that her pet’s name took a journey that went like this.

Romeo, Romy, Rome Rome, Moo-me, Moo-moo, Shmoomoo, Mush-mush, Boopy.

And I bet the dog answers to all of them, right?

Well, of course, yeah.

And then Charisse wrote, I too have a Romeo.

He’s gone from Romeo to Romo to Momo to Mo to Momosius Maximus.

And Charisse also has a pet named Apollo who went from Apollo to Apollo to Apollo pudding to pudding pie to powwow to wow-wo to wow.

Yep, he went from the god Apollo to wow.

That’s great.

And there’s so many of these, both on the Facebook page and the Facebook group.

And the best thing is people are posting pictures of their animals.

Of course.

So you have to go through and like them all, right?

Because they’re all good dogs and cats.

Yes.

But why is it that we do that more with animals than with humans?

I really think that’s true.

I did that with my son.

Did you?

As a baby, yeah.

I mean, he’s got his name, which is Guthrie.

Yeah.

But I called him, it was very chubby, so I called him Fatty and Fatty Manz.

But affectionate.

Fatty Manz, the unnecessary plural.

And then I called him Kiki Man because he kicked a lot even before he was born.

And then I called him Kiko Man Soy Sauce.

Oh, no.

And Sweetest Boy, of course, and a bunch of stuff like that.

Okay.

So you’re saying that you think we do it equally for children.

I think there’s something about that relationship with a baby and a pet which is so emotional.

I think we have a hard time completely expressing it with just one name, right?

Because I noticed that a lot of those tended to the loving and the cutesy.

Yeah, the cutesy sounds.

It’s not like you’re calling them, you know, that one dog goes from Mark to Jeff to Sarah to Judy.

Right, yeah.

It always comes up with something adorable in there.

Yeah.

I’ll share some more of those later in the show.

We know you give your pet strange names, but you’re welcome to call us about anything related to the language, 877-929-9673.

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