How did your dog get their name?

[BCBERRI]

Ruger: He was mine and hubby's first dog together and a Ruger pistol was hubby's first gun so he wanted it to be Ruger. I have since shortened it to just Ru. Unless he's in trouble, then it's RUGER!

 

Timber: His coat when he was a puppy reminded me of a pianting I had once seen. It was called "Snow Falling on Timbers" It was quite pretty, lots of blues and grays. His short name is Tim-Tim.

 

Krazy: Well he earned that one all on his own... He came to us as "Mikha" and I hated it. 2 days in the house and we learned very quickly this pup ain't right! Hubby kept just calling him "that crazy ass dog" so it stuck. And we nailed it in the head with his name!

 

RDM, that christmas song will never be sung the same in my house now!

[Ninso]

Lok (pronounced Loke NOT Lock) was "Buddy" at the shelter, but didn't respond to it in the slightest. I had no idea what to name him. All the names i was considering began or ended with "lo." He spent a day or two as Shilo but it just didn't fit him and I really wanted a one-syllable name, so I took the Lo and put a K on the end, thought it sounded pretty good and fit him, so Lok he became.

[JohnLloydJones]

Senneca was the name she had at the shelter and she responded well to it, so we just kept it. I have no idea who chose it or what was the intended meaning. The location of the shelter is near to the airport, so perhaps the name comes from the Piper Senneca plane? Or Nero's tutor? Or the North American tribe?

[sweet_ceana]

We picked out Ceana's name after we met her at 5 weeks. Her name means fair in Gaelic. Poke came to us as Poco from the rescue... but he likes to stick his nose in everyone's bums so we shortened his name to Poke

 

 

ETA: Ceana's full name is Miss Ceana Lynn Puppy... her nicknames include monster and MONKEY!!! (must be said in a silly high pitch quiet yell voice)

 

I originally wanted to name a dog Moco- slang for booger in spanish (depending on where you are), and Chris said it sounded like I was two and vetoed it.

 

Unfortunetly for Poke he inherited it and his full name is Poco Moco Booger, nicknamed booger for short.

[Rockstar]

Rockstar, aka Roxy, was originally named after the company Roxy. And about the second or third day after we got her my bf had taken her to work with him and when I met him up there, a little girl was petting her and told me 'Your dog is a Rockstar!' And it stuck.

 

Kipp was already named by the Wyoming BC Rescue when we adopted him, but I was recently told that it means 'chicken' in dutch. And now I know that is the perfect name for him because he can be a chicken when it comes to certain things. And we even called him chicken sometimes before we knew that.

[dali]

Fun topic !

 

This is the first dog we got to name ourselves. So we each made a list of names....I liked Jack ( our last name is Jackson) and Bruce ( I'm a springsteen fan)...but the others didn't agree ...

Dali, is named after the painter , and he was on all of our lists. My son is in art school and we all loved he Dali exhibits and houses we went to in Spain. So we've become Dali fans in more ways than one !

[DebC]

Many apologizies to you, RDM and to Mr Woo - but I can't help myself - Mr Woo makes me think of Deadwood.......

[Bo Peep]

Well, Usher is named because he leads me around. He "usher's " me to my seat and also he "usher's" the sheep around pretty good. Hopefully, I can get him in next week for another lesson.

Bailey was pretty used to her name from the pound, but being so overweight, she has the nickname "pudge" which has kind of stuck and I think she likes it. Usher's nickname used to be "buddy" but now it's confusing with Bailey. All my dogs had their special nick names and just loved it when I used them.

P.S. The Christmas tweed thing is stuck in my head, too- LOL.

[BCBERRI]

OMG DebC, I thought I was the only one who thought that! He was one of my favorite characters on the show!

[MrSnappy]

Many apologizies to you, RDM and to Mr Woo - but I can't help myself - Mr Woo makes me think of Deadwood.......

 

Swedgin!!!

 

Do you know how long it took me to eliminate that association after watching that series?? Now it's back. Thanks!

 

 

RDM

[juliepoudrier]

Okay, here's my list:

 

Willow: actual name Willoughby, named after Willoughby Spit in Hampton Roads, VA (she came to me as Jen).

 

Boy: came with that name at 5 years old, and I didn't change it. He was named after Amanda Milliken's great dog Boy (do you know how fun it is to say "Good boy, Boy"? So his nickname became Boy-Boy.)

 

Farleigh: I had every intention of naming him Hawthorne (his original name was King Rae--gak!). When I got him home, something said to me, Farleigh, and so it was. And it turned out to be suitable because he became known as Snarley Farleigh and Freaky Farleigh, and neither prefix would have rolled off the tongue in conjunction with Hawthorne.

 

Twist: I had planned to name her Swift. Yet at 12 hours old, she looked something like a black-and-white candy cane, aka peppermint twist, and so she became Twist.

 

Jill: Jill came to me with that name as a middle-aged semiretired trial dog. I saw no need to change it.

 

Kat: Kat was Kat when I bought her and it suits her. She was so named because the owner's original dog, Kit, had died unexpectedly and the breeder (I think it was the same breeder) then gave him Kat (Kit-Kat). When I first saw her she had chewed the hair off her flanks and tail (stress) and so she quickly became Kat-Rat or Katty-Rat, and those names have stuck.

 

Lark: This is how my thinking goes. Lark's dam is named Scout after the character in To Kill a Mockingbird. I love the book and wanted tried to come up with a related name, but I kept sticking on mockingbird, which is a completely unsuitable dog name. So I started thinking about bird names and came up with Lark. It's a double entendre because I wasn't looking for a pup and Lark's litter was an accidental breeding (but a good cross!). I heard about them when they were 3-4 weeks old and the owner of the sire and dam told me there was a smooth-coated tricolored female. All I had in the way of working dogs at the time were my open dogs, Twist, Kat, and Jill (mostly retired), and open dogs don't really need much in the way of training. So my line of thinking was "Why not take a youngster and have some fun?" So the other meaning? I took the pup on a lark....

 

Phoebe: I have always liked this name, and one of my favorite birds from my birdwatching days is the phoebe (whose call is fee-bee). I didn't use it early on because when I first got into border collies and working sheep, the TV show Friends was very popular and I never wanted anyone to think that I had named a dog after the TV character. But I kept it in the back of my mind and decided if I bred either Twist or Kat and kept a female pup, one of the name choices would be Phoebe. Well, I kept a female out of Twist's litter and Phoebe suited her, and that's that.

 

Pip: Long story. His registered name is Pipit. Some of you probably remember the long "help me name this pup" thread about the dog formerly known as the pup Pudge (aptly named at the time). Already having a Lark and a Phoebe I wanted to stick with bird names, and one of the front runners was Falco (genus name for falcons), but it just never seemed to stick. I went through a bunch of names, with friends and family and with folks on this forum. He even went by Swift for a short time (in fact, that's the name recorded on his BAER test). I actually resorted to going through my Peterson's Field Guide so I didn't miss out on any bird names that might suit. That's how I came upon pipit, which is a sparrowlike bird that walks instead of hops, and whose main identifying charateristic is the constant wagging of the tail (in fact, wagtails and pipits are in the same family). I liked the wagtail connection (if you know Pip, you'll know how apprpriate that is) and decided that Pipit it would be. It also happens that "pip" can mean extraordinary in British slang and "pips" are also the little black dots on dominoes or dice (and those of you who have seen pictures of Pip know that he's mostly white with black ticking). So Pip turned out to be the perfect name for him.

 

J.

[nowwown]

We were trying to come up with a boyish name for our new puppy when he was 8 weeks old and we just had gotten him.

 

And since it was Fourth of July that weekend, we also liked the patriotic names like "Star", "Liberty", etc.

 

We all liked "Cody" (appropriately boyish) and then added "The Rocket" to commemorate the holiday.

 

He responds to Cody or Ody or Yo. And sometimes to Hey. but not to "Rocket".

[kate40541]

Jackson-Stonewall Jackson,

 

This sure caught my attention Dixie Girl! Our first boy border collie was TJ named for Thomas Jackson. I'd read a biography of his wife but needed a name for a boy at the time so TJ it was.

 

Kate - named for her mother Katie who was a really nice girl and it fits my requirements for dog name, short, sharp and can be screeched at the top of my voice without too much embarrassment. She's Katie Scarlett O'Hara but I call her Doodlebug for a, by now, forgotten reason. Her attitude has always been "I'm Kate and you're not." She holds me to a high standard expecting me to always do my best although she understands it's never as good as her best. She's more athletic, smarter, better looking, and way cooler than I am and makes sure I know it. She's my favorite, maybe because she lets me hang around with her.

 

TJ's successor is Nick who is pretty much only called Nicky because it just fits his personality better. He's named after our first border collie Nikki who had to leave us far too soon at 4 1/2. For some reason I had a hard time at first using her name again until I remembered that I'm named after my great grandmother because my parents loved her and wanted to remember her. I wanted to remember Nikki so he's Nick.

 

Kelpie - I regretted this choice for quite a while because of the comments "but she's a border collie!!" "but she's not a kelpie!!" She's named Kelpie for the Celtic mythological creature the kelpie, a shape-shifting creature associated with rivers that could be a horse or a woman. Now I shorten the explanation to a water witch, and say it's appropriate because she loves the water and she can be a witch. Kelpie was a dog's name before it became a name of a dog breed; I'd still like a kelpie dog one day but for now I have my Kelpie. She gets called the Kelpinator a lot because she's a pushy little girl who covers all the ground she stands on.

 

Alabama Jack - after two weeks it's still a bit of a surprise that he's here. He's actually Kelpie's litter mate although she's in denial about it. He was adopted but returned after a year because his first owner graduated from college and realized a young BC didn't fit in with the demands of her first job. She'd named him Cupid, I always thought it was an idiotic name but never thought I'd be able to do anything about it. He was at the rescue again for 5 months before I saw him. I'd been told he was a wild child and no one would take him on but when I saw him I didn't think he was wild at all, he's just a two year old border collie. I've said I'm passing the buck that I think the Lord put the thought into my mind that he really needed to get out of there but I can't think of any other reason the words popped out of my mouth like that or why my DH agreed without any discussion. I spent days making lists of names for him but none seemed to fit. Their litter was from Alabama, a old Florida fish camp style restaurant in Key Largo called Alabama Jack's is a favorite of my husband's, and it just seemed to fit him so now he's Alabama Jack. I don't know how that red tri boy got in the middle of that black tri litter, sometimes I still call him his temporary name of Red Dog. He's not wild and he fits in just fine, I can't imagine life without him.

 

Silkie is our cat, another Celtic mythological creature who changes shape between a seal and a person. She came to us as a stray a few years ago during a week of hard rains when a seal didn't seem quite so inappropriate for a seal brown cat.

 

Suzanne

[vanillalove]

I had a ton of names picked out for my puppy when I went to the rescue to pick him out. Then I got there and as soon as I saw him I thought "Petey". I have no idea where it came from. But it's good for "Oh for Pete's sake!" which is frequently used by my mom when Petey is being rambunctious and pesty, haha.

 

His nick names are Petey Poppers and Peter Rabbit (always said in a almost inaudibly high voice). I was a kid, okay?!

[ItsADogsLyfe]

Seth is named after Nicolas Cage's character in "City of Angels"

 

Meg is just Meg

 

Mike came named Mikie and we just kept it

 

Reign was named by Jennifer Ewers. We got Reign at a trial in NM and couldn't think of a name. Jennifer said how about Rein. We liked it but I changed it to Reign because he was going to "reign" over the trial field...well life got in my way and he's now almost 5 and isn't trained well enough to trial yet.

[RaisingRiver]

Jaida (jay-duh) - She was Jayden at 5mos old at the humane society, she was a return after a month so I assume named by her previous adopter. But I thought Jayden sounded kinda boyish, so I changed it to Jada, which was my 2nd fav girl name that my DH wouldn't name our girls anyway. I had to change the spelling after a few months to adding the 'i' in it because the vets office kept calling her J-ahh-duh which annoyed me to no end, and by adding the i, ppl now pronouce it corretly everytime. She is called Jai a lot.

 

River (riv-er) - I got River at 8wks and she didn't have a name. I wanted to name her Rain because I think it's super cool, but the DH veto'd it saying we live in the PacNW and we get enough rain as it is and it would be too depressing, lol. So my next thought led to another water name, River and the DH loved it because the Firefly/Serenity movie just came out and reminded him of the female character named River. A lot of people think she's a boy since it's a name used for both sexes. Although my son named Peter always thinks I'm calling his name when I call for River in the house. So no more -er named pets

 

Diesel (dee-zul) - I saw him online from TDBCR named as Simon, but came to find out his foster mom (notailabigail) who from his picture originally wanted to call him Simon decided he was more a Basil (Bah-zil) after she met him and had been calling him that. His vet paperwork from his prior owner listed him as Bandit, so he was Bandit for a least a year, but frankly, he had no idea that was his name, lol. When I saw his pic online I wanted to call him Arai (uh-rye) which is a motorcycle helmet company - but I like the name and consider it regal sounding. But after meeting Diesel, I realized he wasn't really an Arai, and I didn't like Simon nor Basil as names. He was nameless for about 2 days until I remembered reading about a cool BC named Diesel online and said it one day and Diesel absolutely responded (most probably because it sounded like Basil which was his name for about 3wks, lol) Anyway, he liked it and it seemed to suit him completely.

[OffTopic]

Finn's foster mom had simply called him "Foster".

That sounded too impermanent, so we decided to change it.

We wanted a Gaelic name and we wanted one we could pronounce (that narrowed the field considerably). And we preferred to do the traditional one syllable name for a BC if we could find one we liked.

So, Finn he became.

 

Seems it may be a pretty common name, but we like it.

And I get to call him Finn MacCool, so nice bonus there.

[Ace]

Honey Bear - My sister constantly called her Honey on the drive home from the shelter, and it stuck, and Bear kind of fit, she is a mini Bear, her Reg name is Diane's Fuzzy Wuzzy (Fuzzy Wuzzy wuz a bear -- if you ever heard that song)

 

Rush - I was trying to think of names, and holding her gave me some odd thrill, so Rush it was! Her reg. name is Elusive Psychotic Thrill, which fits her very nicely, since she is both extremely psychotic and running her in agility (only tunnels) gives me that same odd thrill, so there viola!

 

I never though much into naming dogs, seems everyone has their own stories

 

Diane

[Anda]

Ouzo. He's named after the Greek anise liqueur.

 

During the first four days we got him, the poor dog went through the following : Murphy (beah - bad idea - mine...just forget I even said it), Ares (almost stuck for a couple of days - god of war, perfect for his 8 week old temperament, until I realize the drafting software we're using at work is called ARES, so that went away). There might have been a Mike suggestion at one point.

 

ETA - I totally forgot the couple of days Ouzo was named "Taz", again due to his personality

 

We both really love the name Ozzy. We're both big heavy metal fans, and we love Ozzy Osbourne. The problem was we'd named our Guinea Pig Ozzy three years prior to getting Ouzo, and Ozzy had passed away a few months before and we were still mourning his untimely passing - so we couldn't just recycle it, although we seriously considered it.

 

We both love Greece and we visited this fascinated country about a year before getting our puppy, and since we always had ouzo in the house, I thought - why not?! It's a strong name, has the "z" sound in it, and it's not very common. The clear liqueur also turns white when mixed with water, and given our puppy's white head, it made perfect sense, at least to me. And it stuck and I swear my puppy was so happy that we finally decided and he knew what name to answer to - it was getting all too confusing for him. We said his new name and he smiled at us and we knew it was a perfect fit.

 

In case we ever get another dog, we might stick with the alcoholic theme

[Chesney's Girl]

Well lets see... I love country music and Kenny Chesney is my favorite artist, so Chesney is named after him. When I brought him home I wasn't sure if it really fit him so for about a week I played around with different names. I really liked Soot (and still do and will probably name a dog that in the future) and when he was a pup the freckles on his nose looked like he'd been in the fire place AND I want to be a firefighter so it seemed like a good choice, but not for him in the end. Shadow was in the running because he always seemed to be under foot (like my shadow), but Chesney it stayed. It really seems to fit him now. I couldn't see him as anything else

 

Tucker was just a name I threw out to my sister when we were sneaking him home to surprise our parents and she liked it so Tucker it was.

[Soda-pop]

Soda came with it but I liked it and kept it. I understand in her last home she had a brother named Scotch--Scotch and Soda. She had a sister too, I don't know her name.

 

I spend probably hours each day trying to think of the name of my next dog, who I have no plans but imaginary for! I'm sooo neurotic.

[sweet_ceana]

In case we ever get another dog, we might stick with the alcoholic theme

 

I think Ouzo needs a new pink elephant toy

[Chesney's Girl]

Soda came with it but I liked it and kept it. I understand in her last home she had a brother named Scotch--Scotch and Soda. She had a sister too, I don't know her name.

 

Rocket, or as I like to call her Neurotic Rocket...

[MagicGirl]

Magic came out of the selter with the name Spice. We did not care for it and wanted to changer her name incase there was any bad association to that name. We had lost our last Border Collie about 6 weeks before. It took about two weeks to settle on her name but it was a perfect fit. She is named Magic because she was magically healing our hearts.

 

Nicknames:

 

When she is being goofy it is Silly Putty (derived from silly puppy)

 

When she is being naughty she is The Black Booger.

[nancy]

On our first trip to Yorkshire, we stayed on a working farm with a border collie named Fergie - of course, for Sarah Ferguson the Duchess of York. We really liked the B&B, became friends with the owners (who had had Alf Wight as their vet until her retired, then his son, with whom they'd gone to school) , and fell in love with the dog. She was both a pet and a working dog.

 

So we decided that we wanted a border collie. But a mix, because we certainly can't provide real work - and because we are both mixes.

 

We got our Fergie about a year from meeting the original. Just over 12 years ago. We knew she would be Fergie before we got her. The strange thing is that the kids where she was born had named her Sarah!

 

Her full name is Ferguson J Dog - and we have no idea what the J stands for.