SF and tarzan........
my parents had two pets, one dog and one cat, when they got married. the dog was a fearless type, when very small he had nearly run off the edge of a roof- he was named "tarzan".

the cat, on the other hand, used to be named snowball, it was a pure white fluffy thing. but it had a bad habit of going down into the basement and sniffing around, and it would return upstairs with dirt, grime, etc. all over its face. it got re-named "shitface". when they took it to the vet the next time, they asked the name, and my embarassed dad mumbled "uh, S.F."

(my roommate and i have two hamsters, named "food" and "nummers". their parents were "gobo" and "kliegal" after two lighting instruments- their owners are theater tech majors.)
(clumsyassassin, Wed 25 Feb 2004, 15:34, Reply)

My Tortoise
is called Turbo. I set up a scalextric track between my front room and the kitchen, and converted a couple of scalextric trucks to 'carry' Turbo between the two. We stick stuff to him occasionally and send him between the two rooms. I think we may have to name him 'George' during Euro 2004 as we'll be painting his shell in a St. Georges Cross.
(Quixall, Wed 25 Feb 2004, 15:32, Reply)

just in case my friend tom doesn't post this...
he has a cat called Mentally Unstable Norman

The Norman bit was added to make it less embarrassing at the pet shop

The other one is called Drool

and there was a cat that adopted us in a student house who we called T S Emerson as that was what it said on his tag, (it may have been his owners name as it had an address too)
( Citizen Cavy Admires your passion for conformity, Wed 25 Feb 2004, 15:31, Reply)

Fish
My (recently deceased) goldfish was called Sushi, after the joke:
"A dog is not just for Christmas, with luck there's some left over for Boxing day".
As my mum was allergic to dogs she got us a goldfish instead, and we heard this joke on the TV a couple of days after the purchase of the fish. The name just seemed appropriate at the time. With hindsight maybe it was a little bit cruel. But the fish did live to be over 12 years old, so it can't have minded that much.
(emma_fisi, Wed 25 Feb 2004, 15:30, Reply)

Gumph
I had a cat called Gumph - we named him cos my brother had a dream that we owned a black pig called gumph, so when we got a black kitten it just had to be done....
( TheBrain plotting world domination since 1977, Wed 25 Feb 2004, 15:30, Reply)

cat fight
oh and when i was a kid my cat had a kitten behind the tv so we called it channel 5. gave it away to the neighbours and it came back the next day. so it's mum beat seven shade of shit out of it; it lost 3 inches off it's tail... never came back after that. and mum cat never had anymore kittens for some reason.
( ginmakesamanmean Few and far between, Wed 25 Feb 2004, 15:28, Reply)

I suffer from Manchester City FC
And I ended up calling a goldfish "Wardy" after Mark Ward, a winger with City in the early 90's: mainly because the fish rushed up and down one side of the tank to no discernable effect.

I once went to a sparsely attended Zenith Data Systems Cup game at Elland Road and got all worked up because Mark Ward was taking a corner right in front of me. So I waited until the shouting died down and yelled "I named my goldfish after you!" at the top of my voice.

Cue 2000 Mancunians pissing themselves laughing.

At me, not with me.
( sp3ccylad carries on breathing all the way up to, say, Wed 25 Feb 2004, 15:26, Reply)

Gerbils
called Rover and Fang.

When I am old, smell of wee, and have many cats, they will all be named after founders of religions - Jesus, Allah, Zoroaster, Buddha etc as this will amuse me.
( godstar, Wed 25 Feb 2004, 15:25, Reply)

not my pets...
But i have friends who have named their pets after yard games. One friend has a cat named "Frisbee" but they call him "Friz" for short, and another friend has a cat named "Sticked" after Devil Sticks.
(Nickface, Wed 25 Feb 2004, 15:25, Reply)

jah pussy
I used to live in a flat with this girl who had a black siamese kitten called 'haille selassie'. to this day i don't know why. but given the amout we used to smoke in the very small front room the cat called home i suspect he was passively stoned as any 2-foot reef toting rasta could be...
one day i made him a crown and a sceptre; he ate the sceptre and did a 'cat pie' in the crown. he was renowned for dropping cat pies like they were cluster bombs. glad i moved out now i think about it.
( ginmakesamanmean Few and far between, Wed 25 Feb 2004, 15:24, Reply)

Oddities oddkitties
First cat was called "FAX". Dad (Radio Ham) just got fax machine so an obvious choice.
Cat number two fared worse as it was not deaf like the first. To stick to his theme, my Dad named it "RTTY" (acronym for Radio TeleTYpe) - an early form of wireless telegraphy. Pronounced Ritty by the way.
(lord nose, Wed 25 Feb 2004, 15:24, Reply)

I had the best rat in the world
when I was a student, called Aloysius (after Sebastian's teddy bear in Brideshead Revisited - pretentious, I know).
I went away to work for the summer, giving her to a mate who knew about rats (OR SO I THOUGHT) to look after. Anyway, the slobbish bastard came home pissed one night, stripped off his t-shirt and flung
it on top of the rat's cage. The rat (as rats do) chewed up the t-shirt. Rat + slobby bastard Smashing Pumpkins t-shirt = rat with blocked lower intestine. Had to be put down and nobody even thought to tell me.
Bastards.
( furry numnah has returned from the dead (but her profile appears to be mightily fucked), Wed 25 Feb 2004, 15:18, Reply)

My dog (pictured here relaxing in the grass)

was 18 years old when he died, May 6th last yr.
His name was Frisby. Not Frisbee, but Frisby. He was named after the village I got him from, Frisby-on-the-Wreake in Leics.

Seemed like a fun name, easy to shout, distinctive etc.

I spent the next decade and a half listening to this:
"Ha! Frisby, eh? Does he come back if you throw him?. Hohohohoetc"

Remind me never to get a dog from the quaint Borsetshire village of
Boomerang.
( blyerkit e k trilby, Wed 25 Feb 2004, 15:16, Reply)

Defa
My dad had the great idea to call our dog Defa (as in D-for dog).
Its funny for a while, but after years of calling out the same name, it sorta wears off.
So we had him put down.
( tico, Wed 25 Feb 2004, 15:10, Reply)

My pets all had sensible names...
...but a mate of mine used to have (now sadly deceased) a Guineapig named 'Weep' after the bizarre high pitched squealing noise it made when you went near it with chips.
(inu_asbestos, Wed 25 Feb 2004, 15:09, Reply)

...And my hamster is called Mozzarella
who was named by the people who gave him to me because I like pizza (?)

we usually call him 'Noisy Little Bastard' - he once kept a squaddie awake ALL night by constantly running in his wheel.

here he is as a pirate
( Citizen Cavy Admires your passion for conformity, Wed 25 Feb 2004, 15:08, Reply)

My recently deceased hermaphrodite cat (seriously, it had both sets of nethers)
went through a few different names, most popular was "Licky Kicky Home Security Cat" after a Reeves and Mortimer sketch.
My parents dogs Tyler and Marla are named after the Fight Club characters and our hamsters were called Brian Arse and Doris Arse.
My uncle has a dog called Bugger off, but when he got married his wife said that it was "too rude" and changed it to Bugle.
(BadKittyDirtyKitty, Wed 25 Feb 2004, 15:08, Reply)

I once knew a guinea pig
called Jazzy Jeff

his owner's sister refused to call the rabbit 'the Fresh Prince'
( Citizen Cavy Admires your passion for conformity, Wed 25 Feb 2004, 15:06, Reply)

Cat
I have a cat called "The Cat". He is named after Peter Bonetti
(KJHIOUPOIOIUKJJH, Wed 25 Feb 2004, 15:05, Reply)

my mates cat is called
JC short for Jesus Cat. this resulted from the stench he used to leave in his litter tray after a crap.
( Plomien is Polish for flame, Wed 25 Feb 2004, 15:03, Reply)

I used to have a black gerbil called Desmond
after the Channel4 sitcom about a jamaican guy in Peckham. Unfortunately Desmond had to share a cage with Mikey (after Michaelangelo the turtle, not the artist) who happened to be gay. Desmond was repeatedly raped for about 5 years, until his cellmate passed away.
(chewbakayoko, Wed 25 Feb 2004, 15:00, Reply)

We used to have 2 dogs
Both were Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, and we were given them by a show breeder cos their heads were a bit too...erm...massive really.
We always knew the brother of the two as Lordy, and we'd had him for 5 years before we were given his sister.
It was only when we got given his sister that we realised that his full name was Gaylord, his sister's name being Gaylady! Which was shortened to merely "Gay" by her previous owners. Running round Norton Common on a sunday afternoon through the woods, looking for a runaway dog and shouting Gay at the top of your voice didn't go down too well.

This also accounts for my pornstar name of Gaylord Leonard.

bah!

Lovely lovely hounds though, i miss Lordy still and he died near on 20 years ago! sniff.
( mushybees NEBUSHI SHANGHUNG!, Wed 25 Feb 2004, 15:00, Reply)

My friend's cat was called Teabag,
because he liked to eat teabags, especially the mint kind. Our cat was named Fegs, because at the time I was reading a series of books featuring a cat called Pegs, and I wasn't imaginative enough to change more than one letter.
( Comma, Wed 25 Feb 2004, 15:00, Reply)

Dog called Syndrome
And when it climbed on the sofa, the joke "Down Syndrome" always made me want to punch my Dad in the face. Dead now. (Both.)
(Ihaveagirlfriend, Wed 25 Feb 2004, 15:00, Reply)

Unusual Cat Names
My sister got a trio of cats after she married her husband. Since the husband was in law school at the time (he is now a lawyer), they named the cats Assault, Battery and Misdemeanor. Unfortunately Battery soon died so they got another cat and named it Felony.
(Anne Packrat Staunch Heliocentrist, Wed 25 Feb 2004, 14:59, Reply)

My gran
Had a great dane called Hamlet. (get it?)

Our cats tended to be named after military leaders, we had a Montgomery, Eisenhower and a one eyed cat called Napoleon.
(mr pete, Wed 25 Feb 2004, 14:57, Reply)

I have a calico cat named "Mashed Potato Face"
Although she also answers to just "Tato Face". She & her sister (Cleopatra) were abandoned as kittens because they had ringworm. We already had 2 kittens (Seamus & Morgan), so were not looking for more cats. We decided to treat the ringworm & find homes for them. Since we weren't going to keep them we weren't going to name them, but had to give them nicknames to distinguish them. Potato Face's fur was all messed up due to the ringworm and she has funny facial markings that look like gravy over mashed potatoes. Well, to make a long story short we kept both of them and Mashed Potato Face's nickname just stuck.
(auntiesmedley, Wed 25 Feb 2004, 14:57, Reply)

Moses
Our labrador is called Mose, after the jazz pianist Mose Allison. Only most people mis-hear this as Moses (when we talk about "Mose's food bowl", etc.), so they think that we're religious nuts, instead of Satanic beat freaks.

Also, our first pet was a hamster called Cuddles. So by the ancient art of porn naming (first pet + mum's maiden name) my studly alter-ego is Cuddles Morgan. I just like to hug.
(jazi, Wed 25 Feb 2004, 14:56, Reply)

My 3yr old named our cat and dog
Obviously the dog is called Keith, and the cat had to be called dave. He had tamtrum and everything when he thought we might choose anything else...
(Bob Catshit, Wed 25 Feb 2004, 14:53, Reply)