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I have always liked some of the unusual Gaelic / Celtic / Welsh names that I sometimes hear on TV shows based in the area. Hinterland comes to mind.

 

Although I am not actively planning on adding to my crew, I always keep my ears open for names I like for the next dog. I have a list that I keep taped to the inside of a kitchen cabinet door. [The door that DH never uses, therefore he can't see my addiction. ;-) ]

 

In the past I have perused the names on the ISDS site where they have a page that nicely catalogs all the ISDS dog names alphabetically.

 

Then it hit me one day to google "female Gaelic names", and I found a treasure of great, and often unique, names.

 

If you are soon to name a BC pup and like the idea of using a Gaelic name for these working dogs, start googling, and you will find a treasure trove of names.

 

Happy hunting.

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^^ Being an English speaker doesn't help either! LOL

 

Who (other than a Celt) would expect Niamh, for example, to be pronounced Neve (neev), which is the Anglicized version? :rolleyes: And the list just goes on.

 

I also love the Scots-Gaelic word for "ice", dieghe . . . it's pronounced "jay."

 

There are some websites that offer audio pronunciations for words in other languages. I love them.

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I should have added that I like the Gaelic names because of the relationship to the heritage of the border collie.

 

Regarding the pronunciation: when I Googled "female Gaelic names", the first or second link led to a page led to a page of names which included pronunciations. But yes, for the most part, I wouldn't have a clue as to how to pronounce.

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Another confession to keeping a list of names I like. Though, I don't always use a name off the list for a new pup.

 

Tweed was supposed to be named Deri (Welsh for oak tree since Oak was his litter name). He refused to answer to it. Finally one day I commented to him that he reminded me of his uncle Tweed. He came trotting over and wagged his tail. So I asked if he wanted his name to be Tweed and he wagged his tail harder and licked me. So yeah, my dog picked his own name.

 

Holly just kept her litter name (Hollyhock) and it fits her. She is sweet and lovely, gentle and prim.

 

Ivy's litter name was Clover. That was WAY too sweet and innocent for the little heathen puppy. She looks so cute but has a plotting, devious side to her.

 

I have plans for a new pup for this year. A long time favorite name for me is Skye, so that name is on the list but won't be used if it does not fit the puppy.

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I've had a question like forever about the name Skye. How is it pronounced? Is it the same as sky? Or ski?

 

I have names picked up for next dogs. As soon as a new dog arrives, I beging pondering what the next one (hopefully many years from then) will be called. It just doesn't feel right not to have a name for next dog. It's a bit like with books: I'm an addicted reader, and as soon as I finish a book I need to go select the next one even if I'm not going to start it right away. But it doesn't feel right not having a book's name in my head as the book I'm currently reading.

 

I've always named my dogs with people names. My portuguese breeds dogs had portuguese names, Joana, Rita, Alice, Ana and Sara. A bc I thought should have an english name, and even better if a traditional working dog's name. Ence Tess.

 

Next dog will be either May or Mia, if female. If male, I like Sam, for sentimental reasons, but boyfriend doesn't like it and he will (I hope) be a part of next dog's life.

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I'm another who keeps a list of potential names. I also prefer names that align culturally to the breed. Though I prefer not to name my dogs people names, a few have had people names, usually because they came with the names and they just stuck. I also prefer not to use names that are commonplace border collie names, even though I like some of them very much (Fern and Lark are on my list now that I'm no longer active in the working/trials world). And I've usually stuck with traditional one syllable names for border collies.

 

I can't name my dogs until I've met them. The name has to suit the dog. And even though I have a list of potential names, sometimes the none of them fits and the dog ends up with something I hadn't considered before. . . . like Bodhi. Nothing on my list suited him so I ended up going against my preference for people names and tried calling him Quinn, perfectly appropriate culturally and I liked the meaning (wisdom, intelligence). But it just wasn't quite clicking with either of us, though I wasn't coming up with anything else. . . . till I went to a retreat with my favorite Buddhist teacher. "Bodhi" is a Sanskrit word usually translated as "enlightened" or "awakened," but the teacher translated it as "enlightened or love." I instantly knew it was his name. And when I came home and called him Bodhi, he happily responded like it'd always been his name. I swear he wondered why it'd taken me so long to figure it out.

 

A couple of my dogs' names morphed from what I'd named them into something else, which ended up being their "real" names despite not being their "given" or registered names. One went through a progression of Merlin to Merkins (a pet thing I picked up from a friend who used the diminutive "-ikens" for baby animals, e.g. calvikens, puppykins, kittikins, lambikens, etc.) to Mirk. So much for avoiding common border collie names. Another, named after the Isle of Mull, acquired the nickname "Mulligan Stew" (along with a sing-songy "Mulligan Ste-ew, where are you-oo?") and henceforce became Stew. Only my ex- and I knew it wasn't a people name though, and when he was sold it ended up being spelled Stu.

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I am also a believer in meeting the dog and then finding his or her name. I have a mental list of names I like, but it is the contact with the dog that finalises the choice.

 

Having said that, when I saw a photo of my white faced wall eyed puppy, I immediately knew he was called Oscar. Can't explain why but he was and is Oscar.

 

Of course, having picked a perfect name, my other half promptly starts coming up with nicknames. E.G. My boy Bailey has a nickname Baz and also Bayleaf.

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It is sort of a pain to have another who wants to have input, or approve, the new name. Also, something that makes sense to you, or a word that just rolls off your tongue, may not work the same for the other person in the household - hence, sometimes the name ends up being a compromise. And then there is the whining about "Well you named the last pet (or two or three), it's my turn." ;)

 

Luckily, if/when I get another pup, it is my turn now!! :D

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Why Gaelic? BCs were originally Sassenachs from northern England and Lowland Scotland where Gaelic wasn't spoken.

 

If you want to reflect the breed's heritage it would be more appropriate to look at Viking or Anglo Saxon derived terms found in Northumberland.

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I was thinking more of words actually used in that area rather than names as such, single syllable preferred.

 

My next BC, if there is one, I would like to call Wick if it fits. Should fit though as I wouldn't want a dog that wasn't wick (northern dialect for quick and lively). Only 2 bitches and 2 dogs registered with that name with the ISDS apparently which surprises me. Doesn't seem to be a very old word though, only a few hundred years old.

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Why Gaelic? BCs were originally Sassenachs from northern England and Lowland Scotland where Gaelic wasn't spoken.

 

If you want to reflect the breed's heritage it would be more appropriate to look at Viking or Anglo Saxon derived terms found in Northumberland.

If you're splitting straws.

 

Better than Chinese or Spanish, maybe??

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I don't know, the collie diaspora has reached pretty much all over the world. Looking at the list of names used in ISDS registrations there are clearly quite a lot of non UK ones.

 

But if you're looking at something from the pov of heritage maybe we have a different cultural view of what that means. I'd be hard pressed to define what the British heritage is if not a mish mash of the result of invasion, immigration and internal population movement over thousands of years.

 

On the other hand, with a recently named breed such as the BC it's easier for me to consider its heritage as where it came from and what work it did at the time it was recognised.

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It is my understanding that Scottish is a form of Gaelic. As of now, instead of saying "Gaelic" in Ireland, they say "Irish Gaelic" and "Scottish Gaelic". And when I was in Ireland I never saw any dog herding that wasn't a Border Collie. Go back even farther, and these people are all Celtic. You can go back to that as well looking for names. I am of Irish heritage, and never did learn the language (except how to swear and say rude things, which all Irish American children seem to learn from their older siblings!)

 

Kathy Robbins

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As a Canadian living in Japan let me tell you sheep dogging is a linguistic nightmare. First of all, when I was new and taking herding lessons I had the hardest time trying to figure out who the hell "Frank" was... Took me weeks to figure out my instructor was saying "flank".....haha.

 

More recently I helped the two guys going to the this years Worlds to register their dogs. I had been around these dogs for years and it wasn't until I looked at their ISDS paperwork that I found out...... MAC was actually MIRK, CAP is actually KEP....and MILLY was actually MERRY.....lol.

 

And to my shock even my very own dog which I thought was "JAN" is actually JEAN on her ISDS card...haha

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As a Canadian living in Japan let me tell you sheep dogging is a linguistic nightmare. First of all, when I was new and taking herding lessons I had the hardest time trying to figure out who the hell "Frank" was... Took me weeks to figure out my instructor was saying "flank".....haha.

...And to my shock even my very own dog which I thought was "JAN" is actually JEAN on her ISDS card...haha

:lol::lol: I taught Japanese kindergarten kids for a year, the nicest little 'uns you'd want. And they always were wanting to go and "pray" :lol: .

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Our first border collie mix was Fergie. We named her for a lovely dog we met when we stayed at a B&B on a farm outyside Thrisk (yes, James Herriot had been their vet) in North Yorkshire. That dog was named for Sarah Ferguson - Duchess of York. When we told the vet through whom we adopted the pup, she told us that the family whose dog had the litter had called ours Sarah. But Fergie's full name was Ferguson J. Puppyfrau.

 

Our current border collie mix is Dixie. OK, we are in North Carolina. But it sure was not our choice. However, she was a rescue who had been through too many changes (including time in a pound) in her 7 months that we didn't want to impose a new name on top of it all. Her full name is Dorothea Dixie Cup. We do live a few miles west of the old Dorothea Dix hospital and hers one one of the first biographies I read when I was in 3rd grade (when dinosaurs roamed the earth).

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