Most Popular Pet Names: Top 10 Lists, Local Dog- and Cat-Owner Additions

Buddy and Max reign for dogs while Lucy, Smokey, Molly and Midnight stake their respective claims to top names for cats, as determined by Petfinder.com in its annual lists for most popular pet names.

But popularity is relative.

When it comes to naming a pet, the name is secondary to the story it reflects and nowhere is that more apparent than in pet owners’ responses to the question: “What did you name your pet, and why?”

On behalf of Brandon Patch, I posed this question on Facebook, and the answers were as varied as the people who shared their stories.

Janine Nickerson is the adopted owner of a series of feral kittens and their mom. “We called her Fluffy, for obvious reasons. She was fluffy,” Nickerson said. “However, my husband strongly asked me not to name the kittens, because [then] I’d keep them. They were named, ‘C’, ‘A’ and ‘T.’ ”

Tammy Bracewell, president and chief executive officer of the Greater Brandon Chamber of Commerce, said she named her dog Shopper, because he was found outside a Publix supermarket. 

“He had been there, according to the management, since 5:30 a.m. and at almost 9 p.m. he was still patiently sitting there, greeting shoppers and waiting for his owner to return,” Bracewell said. "To spare him a trip to the pound, I and a fellow dog-loving stranger coaxed this big, red hound dog into the backseat of my Mazda RX 8, with the use of a Milkbone, and home with me he went.”

Shirley Tucker has a dog whose name is in the No. 8 spot for 2008, according to the Petfinder.com report. The name: Lucky.

“Lucky was named when our daughter claimed that they were lucky to have found each other at the Humane Society,” Tucker said.

No stranger to the community theater stage, Cindy Miller-Ray said she drew upon a role she played in “Parallel Lives” for the naming of her cat, Candida. Only later did she find out that the cat was not female, as had been suspected.

“I came home one night and my husband asked me if I saw what he saw,” Miller-Ray recounted. ‘Turns out Candida was a boy. Now we refer to him as, ‘The Cat Formerly Known as Candida.’ ''

Also drawing upon the character in a show, Zana Clay Turner.

She explained: “Many, many years ago my daughter and I felt the need for a puppy to diffuse an ongoing mother-daughter tension. I found a beautiful 8-week-old female Maltese, which seemed to be a perfect fit, only we couldn’t find a perfect name for her. Three weeks later I went to see ‘Les Miserables’ at Ruth Eckerd Hall. As you know, the young daughter in the musical is named Collette [nicknamed Cosi]. Right then and there I found our new puppy’s name, Kozi. She had joined a Zana and an Elizabeth. It only seemed appropriate that she have a ‘Z’ in her name also."

D’Ann White, the editor of our sister Patch in Bloomingdale, said she gave her son high marks for naming his dog Oliver.

“I thought Ian was so clever naming the little orphan after the Charles Dickens character,” White said. “Turns out he was actually naming him after [former U.S. Marine Corps officer] Oliver North.”

Petfinder over 15 years has been involved with some 17 million animal adoptions, according to the group’s Website.

Brandon Patch reviewed the group’s annual lists of most popular pet names after a reader request posted at the end of our report: .

Seven names appear on all four of the Petfinder.com lists of the most popular pet names for dogs, for 2007 through 2010. Buddy and Max top each of the lists in the No. 1 and No. 2 spots, respectively.  Also on each list: Sadie, Jack, Daisy and Lucy.

For cats, four names appear on all four lists, with Lucy at the top for three of those years. Also on each list: Smokey, Oreo and Molly.

And then there are the unusual names.

Over the past four years, those names on the Petfinder.com lists have included  Woe Izmee, Fizzleboom, Bon Jo Flea and (for a duck) Gwyneth Poultry.

Names, too, reflect the times in which we live, with Bella making the lists for cats in 2009 and 2010. Bella is a lead character in both the “Twilight” books and movies, with the first movie hitting theaters in late 2008.

Some people keep it simple.

“My dog is named Sam,” said Jim English. “We rescued him from the pound.”

“Taz,” said Marcia Minutello.

“Domino, because she is black and white,” said Bonnie Tekampe, adding that another cat is named Bentley “because he has a bent tail.”

Also in the Tekampe family: Marty, named after professional hockey player Martin St. Louis. As Tekampe put it:  “Go Lightning.”

The Frazier family  thought outside the box, but with an historical bent. “We have Baxter Maximilian Surrelious,” Laura Frazier said. "And Benjamin Franklin Frazier.”

Debra Souders Walton said when it came time to let her daughter name the family dog, she came up with name Henri. “I gave her the French pronunciation [and] she said, ‘No, mom, it’s Henry, with an ‘i.’ ”

Meanwhile, Walton added, “our black- and-orange tortoise cat is Hallow, short for Halloween.”

Then there are the owners with lots of pets, who have lots of reasons for how they name their pets — both obvious and not so obvious.

The cat named Lucky is so identified “because she’s darned lucky I found her out in the woods, and she’s spoiled rotten now,” Susan Saunders said.

Then there’s Raggedy Ann (“because she is absolutely randomly polka-dotted”) and Scotch (“because he’s black- and-white and there is a brand of scotch called ‘Black and White’ ”).

As for the not-so-obvious, “we have Knuckles, Dooley and Brutus, all English bulldogs,” Susan Saunders said, noting that “Dooley” under previous ownership had been named Froggy, prompting Saunders to add: “Are you kidding me?"

Knuckles, too, was named by a previous owner and also in the mix were “General Beauregard, Anabel Lee, Cassandra and Paddywhack.” As for the reasons why?Saunders simply said her husband  "named the rest of them.”

Sometimes, too, a name emerges over time.

“We now have a feral [cat] named GG,” Nickerson said. "First it was because she slept in our second-story gutters  [and so it stood for] Gutter Girl. Once she became used to being in the house it stood for Gray Ghost, because she was so fast. If you thought you saw something flash past in your peripheral sight, it was her. Now, after four years of being an inside pet, it stands for Good Girl. She is now happy to have hugs. I never thought she’d adjust."

Need some help naming your pet? Consider these lists of most popular pet names, as determined by Petfinder.com, for both dogs and cats over the past four years: