Wednesday, March 10, 2010

What's in a name? Part Two!

While we're on the topic of names, I'd like to talk a little more about pet names. Okay, mostly I want to show you the beautiful pictures of my cats I took the other day, and this way I won't look like that crazy cat lady...

Anyway, I know that many of you are like me. Your pets have "real names" but you rarely ever use them. They get called by their "nick names".

My cats have "show names" (even though they are far from show cats... and even if they were Tux is so fat, I'd have to register him as two cats!), "real names" and a whole slew of slowly evolving "nick names". It's a wonder they don't have multiple personality disorders.

So let's begin shall we?
SHOW NAME: Sir Tuxedo Thunderpaws
REAL NAME: Tux (this was the name the rescue gave him - I lengthened it to something more noble for his show name)
NICK NAMES: Bigbear, Bearcat, Bear,Tuxican, Chubby, Bubba, Bubbaloo, Bubsy, Chubalub, Chupachups, and lately Big Poppa. Dave refers to him as Fatty, Fattius Maxipuss, Faticus, Darth Fatter, Bobafat, Jabba the Fat (and he says he's not a Star Wars fan) and a slew of unbloggable names.SHOW NAME: Princess Jalapeno Shybaby
REAL NAME: Peno - pronounced Peen-yo (Jalapeno was the name the rescue gave her - I lengthened it for her show name and shortened it for her real name). When my niece was very young, she had trouble saying Jalapeno, it came out more like "How-ya-pee-in-yo" - Hilarious!
NICK NAMES: Bunnycat, Bunnybabes, Bunny, BunBun, Funnybun, Babesie, Beebee, Girly, Girlygirl, Sugarcat, Sugar and Princess. Dave doesn't have any nick names for Peno. I'm not sure why, but it's probably because she's not a trouble maker like the other two.
SHOW NAME: Rockster Weewiggles
REAL NAME: Rocky. He got this name because he has a very loud, gravelly purr - and I was watching the Rocky Horror Picture Show at the time. His show name evolved several weeks after.
NICK NAMES: Beanercat, Beaner, Beanbean, Beanie, Beaniepops, BooBoo, and Boo. Dave's names for Rocky are completely unbloggable, in fact the nicest one is "hey you, a$$hole in the cat suit!" Despite this, Rocky adores Dave. Dave adores him too, he just tries to hide it.

(Wow, so much for not looking like a crazy cat lady... that concept just went right out the window...)

Even other animals I know are not immune to having their name changed by me.
For mom's cats it's:
Russell - Russy, Ruffle and Ruffy. Ruffle came about because of my niece - she used to call him "wuffle".
Deuce - Doodles or Doodlecat. I used to call him DooDoo, but my niece gave me crap and said it wasn't nice then she told on me to my mom!
Mr. Tibbs - Mr. Tibbs is that Emporer Tiberius Felinicus I mentioned. Mostly I call him Nibbs, Nibbles, Nibbler or Nibsy.
Lady - Goggy, Stinky, and Stinkydinkydog (Edit: Mom pointed out in the comments that Lady has a show name too - it's "SassyLassyPainInTheAssy" and no, she's not really a show dog but that would be a wicked name if she was!)
My best friend's old dog Cybil was known to me as Snybil. And my grandma's Elvis is Smellvis.

Really though, you can't blame me. I blame my Dad (actually I blame him for a lot of the things that make me so weird). He rarely calls me Valerie. When I was a baby it was Chooch, then it was Pumpkin, but for most of my life... he's called me Poopface.

What nicknames have you given your pets/children?

8 comments:

Rhonda said...

Well, you forgot Ladydog and her show name "SassyLassyPainInTheAssy".
And I don't think I had any pet names for either you or your brother. They were just mostly angry names. :D

Anonymous said...

When my son was born, my Dad nicknamed him Boomer.

He always called me Dink. But, he's the only one that called me that. It didn't catch on, I guess.

I LOVE Sassylassypainintheassy --- I think I may have to go get a kitty just so I can use that name. LOL

TheBlackSheep said...

Oh Good. I thought I was the only one who did stuff like that. Great names! I personally think it shows a creative side. How boring is it to just have one name and only that name? I currently have a cat named Sydney who gets called Ninny or Speedy or most annoying cat on the planet and a dog named Biscuit who gets called Biscuits, Missy Biscuit, Squeebitsli, Squeeby, Squeebs, Dr. Hug, Hüglette and Mme. Hug.

Amy & the house of cats said...

Ok, I am glad that I am not the only crazy nickname person. Our kitty Floyd (who passed away last year) was Floydel, Smokey Bacon (very long story involving Yan Can Cook), Floydster, lardbutt, and of course, dude or dork (all the cats get dork if the do something dorky).
Kirzon has a strange name already, so he is just Kirz or Kirzy most of the time.
Lola is actually a nickname - her true name is Lolilta. But she gets Lolo, Lo, pudge, girlcat (she is the only girl), lady, hey you, fur, furry, and of course, sometimes she gets the entire first line of Copacobana when we refer to her (Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl), crabby, crabby old ladycat
Virgil is usually Virg, V, V-man, dude, tuxieboy (or when I am talking about him and Kirzon they are the Tuxie Boys, though Kirzon is never Tuxie Boy on his own for some reason)
Barney is often called Barnacle, Barn, B, crazypants, baldy (he stress licks his belly - it isn't all bald but it still works), eyeball (he also has eye issues), spaz.

As a group they are usually called The Furries. All of them will also respond to Furry, Kitty or one of their siblings names (call one you usually get a bunch, but not the one you want). Oh, and they all have been called fluffybutt, babycakes, goofball and various things of that nature.

Minding My Own Stitches said...

Our cat just gets called "Cat" ... we spent lots of time and energy deciding on her name, and now we never use it. I don't think she'd even know it's her name.

lexa said...

Jubs, Jubs Jooby, Jooby-Joo-Jubs, Jooby Booby, Mags, Magsalicious, Maggie May, Tibbles, The Tibbling Too, just to name a few! And when they are aggravating me they are the Rotten Bitches, lol!

Knitting Linguist said...

Ha! And here I thought I was the only one. Our dog, Mathilda is also known as Tilly, which has given rise to a whole host of names, ranging from Tillamook, to Mookus, to The Cheesedog. Heh. And you should hear the nicknames I have for my girls!

Anonymous said...

"Asshole in the cat suit" nearly made me choke on my Mt Dew! And "SassyLassyPainInTheAssy"? I'm totally stealing that one!

As for my childhood/teenage nickname (Pierre), yeah, my dad had fun with that, too. It became "pee in the air" and "wee air" and "piss in the air" and, ultimately "whiz air". Sigh.

Dad played with my actual name, too, turning Toni Alisa into Inot Asila.

Such trauma!