by Whiskers, Matriarch of Mischief and Mayhem Central So, my question here is... how do you name your cat? bunny rabbit? dog? or other pet? Well, let me tell you a little bit about the old dear and her naming process! She's an odd duck, that one. Well, not exactly a duck, though she does waddle. Don't put her in a pond to swim around though. More likely she'll sink like a rock and without webbed toes it isn't likely she'd get anywhere even if she did stay afloat. But back to the topic at paw. How does this old bird name her animals.... Let's start from the beginning of time.... millennia ago when said old bird was barely hatched. Her first pet, of sorts, was a stuffed kitty. Yes, merely days old and already she was a cat lover. Well, this kitty was made of hypo-allergenic material with a rubbery face, big blue eyes, a cute kitten nose and mouth and dimples where her whiskers would be if she'd had whiskers. Now we haven't seen this critter as it is long since gone but we've read that though a cute pink and blue originally, the kitty had become well-worn, shabby grey. Over time the eyes and pink nose had lost their colour too. She became real like The Velveteen Rabbit. BUT back to the story. This kitty was designed to cuddle. Paws would wrap around a baby hugging the infant. This was important because as a baby the old dear was as stiff as a board. She couldn't cuddle and snuggle until her third week of life when her rigid muscles finally relaxed. But Allgie Cat, yes HER name was Allgie Cat, could cuddle into the stiff little human. Now you ask, what about the name.... well, she wasn't named until the human could talk and precocious or what!? You remember reading above... hypoallergenic.... well, she named her Allgie and of course, she was a cat... so Allgie Cat she became. The only other pet in the household during early childhood was a dog.... a long haired, shaggy thing with extremely bad manners but that's a story we won't address. It's name was Bootsie. No idea where that comes from other than the fact that anything that looked remotely fuzzy, soft and furry - including caterpillars - was called Bootsie by the toddler and it seems the name stuck with the dog. Through childhood animals weren't a large part of the household due to the fragility of Grandpa but once Grammy (not Grammy back then though) had moved out of the family home she started collecting animals. We've talked about the bunnies... if you remember. There were Powderpuff/Puffy, Twink and Wendell and Pepper and Peaches and their names were explained in the various blogs. Or we think they were. I didn't write the Twink and Wendell one... but Twink had twinkly brown eyes.... and Wendell was originally Smokey (yes, grey colour) but was renamed after Oliver Wendell Holmes... and Grammy loved the name Wendell - sophisticated, don't you think? Now, the cats... PussCat during their life before Grammy moved to Toronto, started out with a long investigation into names that started with the letters PC. Grammy was obsessed with computer technology when it was in its infancy and thought PC related names would be great fun. So, Personal Computer, Progressive Conservative, Politically Correct, Pussy Cat, Power Corporation, and many others were tossed about and of course Pussy Cat won out... but was shortened to PussCat. Then once they were in Toronto it morphed into PussPuss. Malcolm was a black cat. There was a cat book out around that time about a cat named Malcolm. Grammy had just read it ... and as Malcolm was black head to tip of tail she toyed with Malcolm X, but finally settled on just plain Malcolm. Now let me clarify that the name had to suit the cat too. If he hadn't looked like a Malcolm he might have been called Murgatroyd or some such silly, hardly pronounceable name. Phew! Imagine living down that name! Monty was third cat to enter Grammy's domain. A youngster of 14 months, abused by his sibling and no longer wanted by his 'family' when a new baby arrived in the household, he was called Gizmo. When Grammy saw him he was too regal for that name and needed to forget that part of his life. That warranted a name change and besides, he needed something more distinguished for such a handsome boy. The name Montague came to mind and seemed appropriately elegant... and it stuck. Later it was shortened to Monty to keep the names to 2 syllables but in Grammy's heart and mind he was always Montague, the handsome boy who never really grew out of kittenhood. Now on to our current batch. We've probably bored you with this and our names have been explained on FB but here goes once more. Mousie and I, Whiskers, arrived together as fosters and when the door to the carrier holding us opened I jumped out into Grammy's arms, tickled her with my whiskers as I wrapped my paws around her neck and purred. The Rescue named me Chelsea but I preferred Whiskers because I'm so proud of mine. Grammy agreed. Mouse was the wee timid beastie cowering in the back of the carrier, refusing to make eye contact with Grammy and scared to the core. Well, her name has evolved over time. She is such a gentle creature. Wary but never nasty or mean or aggressive so Grammy added Gentle and she became Gentle Mouse or Gentle Mousie and it suits her to the core. Those boys.... Yes, Etude and Rondo...were littermates born to a cat that Grammy was fostering name Fidelia. Grammy got to name the litter and decided musical names would be fun and since the little scraps of fur were very vocal and constantly on the move (dancing so to speak) the group became the Sibelius Quartet - since it almost rhymed with the mom's name... and they became Musetta (the girl), Scherzo, Etude and Rondo and these boys names have stuck all these years, though Grammy does have a few choice names for them when they get into mischief. Best not divulge those here. Sweetie, the last of the menagerie to arrive was just a baby and Grammy was into her flower phase of naming cats for the rescue... so when Grammy saw that cute little face she thought of the flower Sweet Cecily and that became her name. Of course, it had to be shortened to two syllables and so she became Sweetie, which suited her nature when asleep. Her demeanour when awake was much different and she might have been called Rapscallion if it hadn't contained too many syllables. So there you go. For Grammy, naming of cats was based both on the visual and the personality. And our group name, Mischief and Mayhem Central comes from the chaos created by us all. That's it for today friends. We welcome comments from you, our readers and will do our best to respond to them. Let's keep them light, fun and if you'd like to share how you name your kitties and other furry family members we'd love to hear it. Mischief and Mayhem Central 2020
6 Comments
Terry Loftin
9/17/2018 05:00:01 pm
Great blog WHISKERS!Grammy is indeed a great namer!Ya'll are so lucky to share your lives with her!Your adoring fans love reading about the history of Grammy!💝
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9/18/2018 05:19:08 pm
Thank you, Aunty Terry and Raina. We like her choices....though some of her alternate names are less loved... like chubby, beached whale and vacuum cleaner.
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Emma Green
9/17/2018 05:12:25 pm
I think Grammy has done a fine job with names!! Naming a furbaby is no easy task at all and she has excelled in the naming category.
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9/18/2018 05:21:46 pm
We like her choices... though when she calls the boys chubbybunnies or vacuum cleaners the boys get upset.
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9/18/2018 12:14:27 pm
Thank you for sharing your blog. It was very interesting. One of our cats was named Fuzzles. She had the cutest silly sort of face, and the name just suited her.
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9/18/2018 05:14:21 pm
We love the name Fuzzles. Grammy used to call Malcolm Fuzzy Britches.
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