The adorable West Highland White Terrier pictured here is in search of a name. His new family is considering Harper, a name of Scottish origin that also belonged to a famous Southern American author, Harper Lee, or Henry because of the puppy’s regal bearing and royal personality. Or perhaps my readers have a better suggestion. Go to the Animal Medical Center’s Facebook page and join in the discussion about this puppy’s name. Below are some of my thoughts on memorable patient names to help you start thinking. We would also like to hear the story about how your pet got its name.

During the course of my career as a veterinarian, I have heard lots of unusual pet names. To write this blog, I reviewed my personal patient archives to remind myself of some of the colorful names my patients have. Unlike human baby names, which are recorded by the Social Security Administration, and reported on websites like parenting.com, there is no registry of pet names.

Popular culture influences baby names, and 2010 was no exception. The Twilight Saga gave us the top boy and girl names of 2010: Jacob and Isabella.

Popular culture also influences pet names. Over the years I have noticed an evolution in Rottweiler names. For example, a common name in the 1980’s was Mr. T. Tyson became popular in the 1990’s, and more recently Kruger or Hannibal.

Remember the movie Milo and Otis? Milo was an orange cat. Every veterinarian will tell you orange cats named Milo increased dramatically after this movie was released and The AMC has over 300 cats named Milo in its patient database.

Here are some more fun names of pets, in alphabetical order so no one will be offended.

Abie – A West Highland White Terrier owned by a pianist. The name was a truncation of the Composer Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin.

Barbara, Diana and Mary – An entire litter of three female miniature black poodles named after the Motown group, The Supremes.

FSBO – (pronounced fizz-bo) A real estate acronym which stands for For Sale By Owner. This dog’s family worked in the real estate business.

Handsome – An aptly named, fabulously handsome Pug with velvet black lips.

Pugsley – When I first met this dog I spent a lot of time in the waiting room looking for a Pug or a Puggle, but I just found a brown, mixed breed dog. Turns out the owner just liked the name and its choice had nothing to do with the dog’s appearance.

Quay – A dog rescued from a drug dealer and previously known as Quaalude.

Sapphire – This cat should have been named Spitfire. No veterinarian could get within a mile of this cat without risking life and limb.

Simon – A Morkie, was thought to look British in a photo sent to a family member and he immediately became Simon.

________________________________________________________

This may also be found in the “Tales from the Pet Clinic” blog on WebMD.com.

For over a century, The Animal Medical Center has been a national leader in animal health care, known for its expertise, innovation and success in providing routine, specialty and emergency medical care for companion animals. Thanks in part to the enduring generosity of donors, The AMC is also known for its outstanding teaching, research and compassionate community funds. Please help us to continue these efforts. Send your contribution to: The Animal Medical Center, 510 East 62nd Street, New York, NY 10065. For more information, visit www.amcny.org. To make an appointment, please call 212.838.7053.