What's in a Name? Everything!

Mr. Dublin
I’m always curious how people decide on names for their pets. Picking a pet’s name is serious stuff, right?! It’s not something you can just pick out of a hat. Although, I have known of people that have a name picked out and then they try to find the pet to go with it. Normally though, It’s almost like you have to try the name out on them and see if it sticks.


My oldest dog is a black and tan Aussiedor, (that’s a Labrador Australian shepherd mix.) When we adopted him from the SPCA, he came with the name Jasper. Jasper just didn’t fit this 12 week old boy, so we knew we had to come up with something else that was better suited for him. 


We tried out a few names based off favorite movie characters, and some more based off what his color reminded us of. Since he is black and tan, we were reminded of an Irish stout that is also black and tan. We tried calling him that, but it just wasn’t working. Again, we were back to random names, just throwing them out and hoping they’d stick. Then finally, like it was just his name all along, we decided on the name “Dublin.” Dublin is the city where the black and tan Irish stout is made, (my favorite drink,) so it was perfect.

Over the years, he has become Mr. Dublin, and sometimes he’s “Dubseywubsey” when we’re playing or just “Dubs” for short. No matter what we call him he just looks at us with a big grin and a wagging tale. He is just the sweetest boy.

We also have a cat, and an almost 2 year old Black Lab. We got our cat as a 6 week old kitten. A grey little boy with a touch of white striping. We had no trouble picking out a name for this one. That soft grey fur reminded us of Merlin’s beard, so Merlin it was.

Until, at 5 months old something went wrong. Merlin was acting so weird. With all the whining and strange behavior, I thought there was something wrong, so we took Merlin to the vet, and crossed our fingers in hope of everything being okay.

Everything was fine except Merlin was not a boy at all, and she was in heat. We had her fixed and knew that Merlin was no longer a fitting name for this little kitty girl. But, since she had come to know her name as Merlin, we didn’t want to confuse her too much, so “Merlin” became Marilyn. And, boy is Marilyn ever a fitting name for this diva!

Our other dog was also adopted. When we got him, we thought he would end up being a chocolate color, so for a couple of days, his name was Count Chocula, but it just didn’t seem to fit his loving personality. This boy loves to cuddle, and needed something a little simpler. We decided on Dawson, the last name of my husband’s favorite baseball player. It’s a perfect fit!



Dawson on adoption day.

It’s funny to think back on what other names we considered for our animals because I can’t imagine them being called anything else. Their names are part of who they are!


This blog post is a part of the “What’s in a Name?” Campaign hosted by dog bark collar. Our pets deserve the best!

1 comment:

  1. Very nice post! I agree to all that you have said on your post. I like the names you've given to your pets. It's cute!

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