Pet Name Evolution

You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

Most of us tend to keep the names that were given at birth.

But with pets, it’s kind of a different story.

Sometimes animals take time to tell you their names.

When my partner and I adopted a little white Maltese poodle mix,

It was hard for us to settle on one name.

Her previous owner called her Mitzi, but we didn’t like that.

And then for a while we were going back and forth between the names Daisy and Lily.

And both of those names kind of reflect her sunny personality and the fact that she’s tiny and delicate.

In fact, she’s so tiny, Grant, that for a while there we were going to call her Cucaracha, but we decided against that.

But she’s about that big.

And it actually took us a whole month before we decided on the name Lily.

And I think that that was really mainly just because it tripped off the tongue more easily when you wanted to say, Lily, no!

You know what I mean?

But it struck me, Grant, that in contrast to human names, a pet’s name is often a work in progress and sometimes for quite a while.

Did you have that experience?

We did have that.

When we lived in the country, we were given a dog by neighbors.

It was a beautiful, great Pyrenees.

These are big, white, furry animals.

Oh, yeah.

They’re gorgeous.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And they called her Bandy, B-A-N-D-Y.

And this is from the Mo Bandy song, Bandy the Rodeo Clown.

You know this song?

No, I don’t.

I don’t.

It’s a song about a guy who’s a rodeo clown.

And so they thought she had hip dysplasia.

And this is where she makes her walk kind of funny.

And so they thought she looked like a clown.

So they called her Bandy the rodeo clown.

Oh, because she was bandy-legged.

And so we got this dog, beautiful animal, a rascal, though.

I mean, she could smell the neighbor’s rabbits a mile off.

And it was constantly going down there to worry the rabbits.

-oh.

My mother decided to call her Bambi instead.

Yeah, because it’s close to Bandy.

So the dog isn’t overly confused.

But it’s not this awkward, weird name.

Bambi, again, she was far from docile.

She was not a sweet little doe.

Well, yeah, and Bambi for a great Pyrenees.

Why didn’t you just call her Fifi or something?

That is not a dog you call Cucaracha.

You call her Bull Elephant.

She was big and ornery and as sweet as pie when she was your buddy.

But it is funny, isn’t it, the way that their names can go through so many different changes through life sometimes.

Yeah, yeah.

And, of course, it didn’t stop at Bambi.

It became Bam, you know.

Oh, yeah, nicknames.

Yeah, the shortening happens and the other things, and it’s good.

Well, if you want to talk about your pet’s name change or maybe your pet peeve about language, call us.

We’re here to talk about words and phrases, grammar, old family sayings, and slang.

1-877-929-9673 or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.