The Importance of Names: "Pets", Furrs, Fids

I have been thinking about names lately.  Well, I always spend a lot of time thinking about names--usually nicknames for my animal friends that turn into their daily names. 


For instance? 

HINEY

Hiney in the sink of our W. Springfield apartment

We call our lovely orange tabby girl kitty, Hiney.  What an embarrassing name to tell your vet (or your friends), but it makes so much sense!  I originally named her Madeleine, when she was just my foster mom-cat.  Over the months and years her habit of doing an extreme Halloween pose at the slightest touch of her back (thereby shooting her little bum in the air), caused me to change her name first to Madelheiney, and now just Hiney. 

TEENY

Teeny (and Nacho) a few months ago--she's grown since, but not a whole lot.  I should take a new picture of her after her first hair cut (next week!).  It's so hard to get a good photo of her because she is so solid black!

There is also Teeny, formerly known as Concertina.  She soon became Tina (she looks like a Tina--all that 80's hair fluff), and then Teeny.  I love the name Concertina, but Teeny suits her better for the everyday.  She tiptoes around just like Mercy, and I've never seen another cat blink the way she does!


STICK

Chappie loves running around outside, especially when there are sticks to be had.

Then we have Chappie, who we are starting to call Stick, Stickey, Stick-Man, and so on.  I think I will probably settle on Stick after awhile.  How in the world did we get from Chappie to Stick?  Well, his full name is Limehouse Chappie (any The Sting fans out there?).  When we first adopted him we didn't know how to call him-- Limehouse sounded ridiculous (after saying it a few times I gave up), and Chappie felt a little strange and pretentious at first but we soon settled on it.  After awhile (and after discovering his love of all things stick-shaped) we started calling him Chapstick and the names progressed from there.


MOO

This is how I feel about the Moo.

Zhoomy La Rue.

And here we have the lovely Amanda, soul-cat extraordinairre.  Mandy was probably the first nickname, then, somehow, the name Mandy Moo came along.  Which soon became Mandy MooShine, then Zhoomy (not sure if I'm spelling that right, wonder what the phonetic spelling would be?), and now just Moo or Zhoo or Zhoom.  The "zh" sound is primarily inspired by her tremendous motorcycle purr.

LINDA

Me and Linda.

The hardest to talk about right now is Soren.  He suffered a saddle thrombus, and likely pulmonary embolism as well, on December 17th, 2011 and we had to euthanize him.  Oh but we had the best names for him, so I will get past the sadness to the good stuff, which in its way is also sad because it is now just a memory.

He liked to help.

Soren made the progression from Soren to Linda, perhaps the most complex progression there will ever be, and involving an entire gender change.  Even still, he never lost his periodic bouts of neutered-male insanity where he would chase, paw at, and generally harass Hiney. 

He was a big guy.

Soren, because of Kierkegaard.  I always loved that name and wanted (want?) to use his sister Maren's name one day, too.

Then Snorey (just because). 

One day Jeff pointed out the beauty mark that was on his nose, and revealed that he is really Snorilyn Monroe.  Along with the name came his voice.  A breathy, lisping yet still masculine voice.  Very much a part of the Snorilyn personality.  We very much liked talking for him in his voice.

Then it started to shorten (are we lazy, or is it just natural to gravitate to the shortest names?): Snorelinda. 


And finally, Linda.

Nacho isn't Soren's baby, but Soren tolerated him as if he were, and even gave him a good cleaning now and then.

He was always Soren, but he became so much more than Soren in our lives. 

And there are so many more... But they don't have the same depths of nicknames.  At least, not yet. 

Little Nacho

Pie Pie

Mothra Sue

Moira

Etta Lee James & Mr. Naked Head 

I can't believe I don't have any pictures of them on the computer!

Sweet Jesus Riff Raff (Muffinhead)

 There are also a bunch of fish in the backyard pond at the house we just bought.  I tried to name them today but I'll need to study them some more before I can tell them apart.  Pictures will likely be coming soon...