How did you come up with the name for your pet(s)?

I remember that when I tried to come up with a name for my dog, it was not until a day after he got his name Pandie. I thought of his name to be Mandy originally, because I thought our family was getting a girl dog; however, since the dog is male, my dad came up with the name Pandie instead. Pandie is my first dog that I've had for going on 8 years now, and he hasn't grown a day older in my eyes! ^_^

Also a friend of mine had six baby cats and didn't know what to name them. 3 were male, and 3 were female. A cousin or relative of theirs came up with six names that came out of nowhere and stuck with the cats for the rest of their 9 lives! Female: Rose, Lilly, Pink; Male: Fart, Fizzy, and Stink. I have to say that this was one of the most unique ideas that I've ever heard of to name a group of cats, thus inspired this thread!

So, how did you come up with the name for your pet(s)?

Please use this thread to post how you got the name for your pet. There was an accident in double posting.

It was just a family vote. I voted for Link or Zelda but they went with Lu-Lu and Ricky.

Simple really, my cat Chubby is fat, and my other cat Cowy is black and white and enjoys eating grass. Those aren't their original names, but they might as well be since that's what we've called them for years.

when we were trying to come up with names my dad saw a bottle of Kahlua and thought that would be a good name. 
 
and that's why my dog's name is Kahlua.

My cat is named Simon Julius, named after the first Belmont and most recent canonically, respectively.

Our dog was already named when we got her. Her name is Roxie. Our last cat was named Hemingway because he was a Hemingway cat. My dad nicknamed him Hemi after a hemispherical engine because that cat was so damn hyper all of the time.

Our Beagle mix, Felipe, was named by the shelter. We decided to leave the name. 

My dad is a Minnesota Twins fan so he named my first dog (jet black Golden Retriever/Chow mix) Kirby. My second dog is a Yorkie so Zoey seemed to fit her well.

My dog who I had since I was 8 (I'm now 21), was named by my sister's friend who said she looked like a "Peanut", hence her name being Peanut.

I dunno, the same as how you name a kid. You just name them.

I've had Abby the tabby cat.

Ferdie the springer spaniel. Whom we ended up calling Wergle, or Wergs for short. After Worzel Gummidge.

Homer the springer spaniel.

And currently Ralph the staffordshire bull terrier.

The last two have nothing to do with the simpsons.

I had a dog named 'chaz' as my mother assured me he wouldn't be picked on by the other dogs if he had a cool name.

I have three dogs. The first is Luke, who we adopted when he was 1, so he already had a name. Then we got another dog who was insane so we named her Marley. And then my sister got a dog, who is now living with us, who was named Mundo, after the LoL champion.

Our cat's fur sort of looked like a cappuccino so we called her Cino!

A simple way of coming up with your pet's name: take the name of the street you grew up on + your porn star name.

We were eating a Little Caesar's pizza when we got our puppy. 
 
My dog is named Little Caesar.

I had been watching a lot of Highlander at the time, so I decided to call my cat Clancy, after Clancy Brown, the actor who played The Kurgan (amongst other things in other media).

Also I found out that Clancy Brown's full name is Clarerence J. Brown III, so that's what is on his official registration at the vet. I typed it in myself.

The only cat I named was BT.

Her tail was bent when we got her, and had that permanent tweak her entire life.

EDIT: I was six, to be fair. My creativity in nomenclature hadn't yet reached its full potential.

@mlarrabee said:

The only cat I named was BT.

Her tail was bent when we got her, and had that permanent tweak her entire life.

Should have called it Kanji.

Though you said she...

I have a chihuahua named Peewee because of his size, and a yorkshire terrier named Penny because of reasons.

My first cat we found on holidays so I named her Holly. The second my mom named Roxy.

My fiance and I have a pug. We're both fans of the show "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia." Thus, we named our dog "Dee."

My name is Calvin, my Cat's name is Hobbes. I thought it fit.

Had a bird naming system that consisted of naming the birds we got: Bird A, Bird B, Bird C, etc.

Bird B and Bird D were both killed by my cat Cassius who was name that way when the ex and I rescued him from the shelter.

My other cat, At3mis, was named after a character in the book "Ready, Player One". Not the best book by far, but Wil Wheaton put in a great performance in the audiobook, and I just finished listening to it the day I found her on the side of the road.

And my dog, Snuggz, was named after Snugglesaurus which was something the ex made up and then found it to be on baby apparel soon after.

I am not the best at making names, I can admit this freely.

I just name em what they are. Cat's name is Cat. Had a bird I named Bird. Had a hamster I named Hamster. 
 
Only exception was a dwarf rabbit I named Chestnut

my Basenji, Tucker, came with the name, and I was afraid to change it and make him learn his new name all over again.

I have a pet rat named Batman. He's not actually a rat, but like a hamster or gerbal or something. I don't really know what he is, but hes fat and loves me and that's all I really need.

MEET BATMAN.

I found him in my backyard about 1 year ago.

Its usually up to family vote so that never ended too spectacular.
 
I need to get a male cat soon, I want to call one Geralt.

You know, I'm not really sure now... My first dog was an adoptee from the pound and already had a name, and the second was just named after her color, Ginger (kind of generic, I know, but I was like nine.) Now that I've moved into a place that doesn't accept pets, my girlfriend and I have taken to naming the stray cats we see wandering around on the street, which we've named for their resemblance to movie cats. Years from now, when we finally move into a place that takes cats, I expect our place to look like some kind of feral cat zoo/breeding ground. Gf is crazy cat lady in the making

My cats name is Whiskers. I just wasn't that creative at the time and stole the name of our neighbors cat.

My dogs name is Barny. Can't remember exactly why, but just look at this bad motherfucker:

@SuperCycle said:

My name is Calvin, my Cat's name is Hobbes. I thought it fit.

OMG, BRILLIANT!! =-D Definitely fit.

For my poodle, Benjen, I looked at a list of all the characters in the Song of Ice and Fire series and picked the one that sounded the most dog-like. His middle name, Lazerwulf, came from some person in the credits of Fiddler on the Roof. There is somebody out there in the world right now walking around with the name "Lazerwulf." Or maybe not. After all, that movie came out like 40 years ago.
 
My Shetland Sheepdog, Marley, got his name because I liked Bob Marley a lot when I was a teenager.
 
My wife named our oldest cat, Noodles. She doesn't know why she picked this name. She said it was random.
 
One of our kittens is named Peach because she's a princess (it was either that or Xena) and the other one is named Dolly because that's what the person who rescued her named her.

The last pet I had was a Budgerigar. I called it "Bird" because, well, it was a bird. It's not like animals would need a name. Most of them do not have a self image.

Chewie.

I'll let you figure that one out.

Unless the animal takes a complete shine to me, the naming is usually left to a vote. Now that I think about it, even with voting I usually end up naming them in the end anyway. Most of the names just come from the top of my head and just sounded like a nice fit.

My youngest dog, an Alaskan Husky/Border Collie mix is named Abigal or Abby for short.

Oldest dog is a pitbull/lab mix is named Jennifer or Jenny for short.

Youngest cat is named Samantha or Sammy and is a tabby mix. I mostly just call her bitch nowadays because she is literally the angriest and meanest cat. Her meowing doesn't sound so much like a meow, more like she's shouting "fuck you" at you.

Our oldest cat is named P.J. or "Peggie Joe" is a calico and was named by my mother.

Animals that have passed away but were named by me are as follows:

Nikolai was a Siberian husky/timber wolf hybrid. I've really dug the name Nicolas as a possible child name and since Nikolai's country of origin is Russian I thought Nikolai was a great fit. There was also a Timesplitters 2 character named Nikolai, and man I love me some Timesplitters so just maybe....

Roger who was a tiger tom cat (sometimes called toygers) and was just, well he looked like a Roger. He was a goofy fat bastard and probably the nicest cat ever.

The family might be getting a new cat soon and I'm pushing on getting a black cat and naming him "Sullivan" because Sullivan from Uncharted is awesome. That's the extent of my reasoning and as far as I'm concerned, pretty flawless.

We were going to get a kitten from a litter whose face was coloured in such a way that it resembled Rembrandt lighting, so we decided to call this kitten Remy. When we looked at photos of all the kittens from the litter, we saw another one that just looked so damn sad that we chose her instead of the one we were originally planning to take. We did not change the name.

My second, and favourite, cat is named Garrus, as far as I'm concerned. I refuse to acknowledge the name my family gave him, Seeley (after the Bones character) and my family refuses to acknowledge the name Garrus. Garrus is awesome, my cat is awesome. Like Garrus, my cat is a very proficient hunter. He's also unexpectedly warm and fuzzy. Also, he tends to favour me, so I count that as approval for the name Garrus. I win.

When we adopted our little dog, he had the name Ahab. Since he had lost a leg, we just assumed it was a reference to the Herman Melville classic; however, we eventually found out that his foster family was Jewish and that they named him after the most wicked king of Israel (we weren't sure if they knew that little tidbit). In order to avoid referring to our new dog by such an unfortunate name, we decided to twist the name Ahab into Habby. The end.

We were going to get a kitten from a litter whose face was coloured in such a way that it resembled Rembrandt lighting, so we decided to call this kitten Remy.

Once had an all black cat whose name was kitty. She had kittens and I kept the one that was all grey. Therefore it was named grey kitty, creative I know. Grey kitty really didn't end up fitting him. That cat was a fucking beast!

W have two Russian Tortoises that we saved from some lady who was keeping them in a bathtub. We also happened to be playing through P4 at the time, so Kanji and Teddy seemed like perfect names for our new little guys.

I was 7 years old. Cats are fast. So I named her Speedy.

My cat is named Orcus, he came that way.