Cat Names

Can you imagine yelling out of the back door late at night for your cat "Bubasti". It sounds very much like something else and has the neighbours saying "What are they shouting? Are they swearing at someone?" that was the name given to one of our cats by my Grandfather, A very very clever man, huge IQ but no common sense. Apparently the name was that of an Egyptian Cat Goddess.


Names can be very emotive things, quirky, unique, common place. The reasons can be many and varied. They for some reason have caught the owners fancy. Others can be for obscure reasons, for example we knew a family who named all of their cats after supermarkets. Not entirely sure why, maybe they got vouchers for advertising.
We have told you about naming our cats after whisky but where? do I hear you ask does the name of our eldest cat Socket come from? Socket spent his first 4 weeks of life in a cardboard box that had housed a television set. We named the kittens from words on the box. Socket and Tv where used. When we found we were keeping Socket and his brother we changed them to Sprocket and Tuvok. Tuvoks name stuck, we where very much into our Sci Fi and Tuvok was a character out of Star Trek. Socket wouldn't take any notice of sprocket and it slipped back to Socket.
We have had quite a few cats over the last few decades, Beeswax one of the loves of our life was named after a cat in a film with Tom Selleck in. Beeswax was our beautiful long haired tabby who was magnificent.
Chantilly was named after the lovely pattern of her fur coat, she was a cream and brown tabby with the most amazing yellow eyes.
Lillipud was our very first cat, we cannot remember where her name came from but one of us loved the sound of it and that became her name, she was more often than not called Pudding. She was a lovely Tabby who turned up at Grandmothers house very young and very pregnant. She lived in their caravan on their driveway until we were married and could provide a home for her. Sadly she died of Leukemia a few years later.
The older cat that Talisker was to be companion to was called Wispa after the chocolate bar which has now been reintroduced. Wispa was a tortoiseshell in browns oranges and blacks and her coat looked like a mass of fine bubbles Actually originally she was called William because of the straight red blaze she had down her nose reminiscent of William the Conqueror and the helmets the Normans soldiers wore. It wasn't until we found out it is virtually impossible to get male tortoiseshells that we looked and yes she was a girl.
We may seem to have a problem sexing our cats but it is not because we cannot tell the difference it is because we believe what people tells us. Its like the Grandma of one of us told us the moon was made of Cheese and hence always has their packet of Jacobs Crackers ready for when samples are brought back.

Some people are quite contrary about the naming of cats, I know of a cat called Rover and another called Rex. Language can play a role in naming such as the Latin word for cat is Cattus and there have been many a cat called Cattus. There are names that are derivitves of the word cat I have know cats called Kato, Kat, Catkin and Cattakins. Some names are a play on words, I heard of someone naming their cat Ceefer, when asked where the name came from they said it was C for Cat.

One of the first cats we ever had was a bad tempered Calico Tortoiseshell. We looked for a name that would describe her character all we had that had a list of names in was an old tatty family bible that had a list of all the names therein, we came across Meribah which meant strife and contention and to be ironic it was shortened to Merry.

Then there are traditional cat names such as Felix, Tibbles, Tabitha, Tigger, Fluffy, Marmalade, Tinkerbell, Smudge, Charlie, Blacky etc.

Some people take their cat names from famous cat both real and fictitious such as Bagpuss from the same named children's program who was a pink and cream striped cat with magical abilities or Orangey who played the role of Cat in Breakfast a Tiffany's. Snowball was the name of Lisa Simpson's cat and of her many subsequent cats, Garfield who was a great big orange lump of a cat whose ethos was sleep and Lasagna, which may owners feel relates to their own cats. Nelson was one of Winston Churchill's cats who used to sleep on a chair during cabinet meetings, who in turn was named after Lord Nelson. Winston Churchill had many cats and particularly loved ginger toms, His last cat before his Death was called Jock. More details on Jock can be found at http://www.flippyscatpage.com/churchill.html
Do you remember the cartoon series of the seventies Top Cat, obviously many do because often owners can be heard calling for their cat TC.

If you are looking for a cat name here are a few from our many friends and some of our own
Bobo .................an enormous ginger and white tom
Tuppence ..........a dark brown tabby with handy claws
Charlie ..............a chunky marmalade Tom
Mo ...................The smallest fully grown cat we ever knew
Schnapps..........an apricot ginger boy
Malibu...............a calico tortoiseshell
Anes.................a black oriental
Mimi......... ........a Portuguese silver tabby
Sebastian .........a black and white Tom
Brambles...........a tortoiseshell
Blondie..............a fluffy white cat with one blue and one green eye who isn't deaf
Levi ..................a grey Havana
Petrinka ...........a black long haired male moggy
Paddy ..............a black and white male from Ireland