Yesterday, while listening to a radio interview with Michael Schaffer, the author of One Nation Under Dog, I realized that the pets I had as a child had unusual names. Schaffer was talking about how dogs are now named Max, Chloe, and Jackson (popular baby names) instead of Fido and Spot. I nodded along before thinking, hey wait, most of our pets had Civil War names.Over the years, we had cats named Appomattox, McDowell, Charlemagne, Traveller, Rienze, and a dog named Zouave.
It had honestly never occurred to me that this might not be normal.
picture: my sister with (a very patient)
Update (4/12/09): I'm home for Easter and my family has informed me that I forgot a pair of kittens — Faugh and Ballaugh. I had a feeling there were more. Faugh and Ballaugh were named after the motto of the 28th Massachusetts: Faugh a Baullagh or Clear the Way.
2 comments:
.i named my hamster pneumonia lisa...and then i named my two small white mice thelema and louise.
Most of our early pets had simple names, although the Eliot-ish habit of giving a fancy name for special occasions was respected (hence, Graymaulkin Pahws).
Recently, they've all sounded rather English:
Jenny Muffet, Simon Smudge, Oliver, Jack, and Maggie.
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