Why that name?

[chowkidz]

I tell my husband every night about the different stories i read on this site. I will tell him the furkidz names and it got me wondering how/why they got their names.
Our first Chow/lab mix was Bear. He was already named when we rescued him from the butthole that was abusing him. He is the reason we fell in love with the breed and also the reason for some urban legends in Bucks Co and Berks Co. He became known as "that black Chow". He had issues and it scared people. We loved him no matter what people said.
Nala was our first chow puppy. We got her at 10wks. Huge Disney fan and lion king just came out. She was our little princess. She died when she was 6months and it just killed us both. I have not watched the movie since.
Jade was born exactly one week after Nala died and we wanted a name that was strong and meaningful. We read somewhere that in China a Buddha statue made from the stone Jade is given to newlyweds for strength and mortality. Not sure how true it was but we liked what we read. And let me tell you she is as hard headed as they come.
Nanook came from the movie lost boys. Not after the husky but the fact my husband and i both liked the movie and the name. It didn't hurt that it has something to do with bears.

Thanks for letting me brag about my kidz.

[Larry Harris]

Ai Shu (I Shoe) Chinese for Love and Forgiveness Figured a puppy would need both





Larry

[IliamnasQuest]

I think that Nanook means "polar bear" in Eskimo or Tlingit or Athabascan or one of those native languages.

My dogs usually have names that start with a hard consonant like T, D or K - just my preference as their call names then start with a sound that carries well (something I learned in obedience training back in the caveman days .. *L*).

My first dog, before I ever really considered being a trainer, was a husky/elkhound mix named "WAM" - for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. I was teaching music at the local public school at the time.

Dawson was my first German shepherd dog. Dawson just seemed appropriate for a big male Alaskan shepherd. He was my gentle giant and completely gave his heart to Kylee when she was a puppy. One of the few times I ever heard him growl was when a stranger approached Kylee when she was just a few months old. It kind of shocked me at the time! Daws was my first obedience dog and was originally acquired to train as a search and rescue dog (I was an EMT with the local emergency services).

Then I acquired Lady, who was named Lady already. She was a year old and an Australian shepherd. Lady was definitely a misnomer because she was the least ladylike female dog I've ever known! I wouldn't have chosen a name like that for her but at the time I didn't think about changing it. I called her "Ladybird" most of the time.

Kylee Cub came to me in 1991 as a puppy destined to be euthanized. She was rescued by the vet clinic I worked at and I was only going to keep her until we found her a good home - and that was 16+ years ago now! The wife of the vet picked out several names and then I picked the one I liked the most, which was Kylee. I added on the Cub because, of course, she looked like a little bear cub.

Trick was my next GSD and the breeder wanted me to call her Juneau, which is the capital of Alaska. I balked at that and ended up naming her Hawks Hunt's Tricky Saxon (Hawks Hunt is the kennel she came from, Saxon is part of her sire's name). This name truly fits her - she IS the Trickster!

Tori came next, another GSD, and she came from a "V" litter which meant I had to choose a name starting with a V. Yuck! I came up with Viktori and her registered name was Viktori vom Zwilling Bach (it's a German thing .. *LOL*).

Shortly after that I got Dora at 14 months of age, and she was already named and registered. Her full name is Eldorado's the Midnight Sun and they were calling her Sunni, which to me didn't fit (for a BLACK chow!). So I changed it to Dora (from Eldorado) and she took to the name right away. She also responds to "aDORAble dog!" which, of course, she is!

Khana was one of those "happens quickly" type of things. I'd been looking for a chow pup for about a year and then someone put me in contact with Khana's breeder, who had a litter of pups at the time. It was only 17 days from first contact to actually holding Khana in my arms, and during that time I went through Chinese names trying to settle on a few that might work. When she got here, she immediately seemed to fit "Khana" (long for "Khan" .. *L*). Her registered name is Clos de Lion Red Hot Khana.

Tazer, my eight month old GSD pup, was a "W" litter so I had to pick a W name (another yuck!). Her full name is Wystazer vom Anlaufstelle. I like my call name being part of the registered name, so I always try to fit something in even when I have to start with a W or V!

And along the line I had several horses, but the main one was with me for 17 years and his name was Fireweed - a very appropriate Alaskan name (Fireweed is one of the main flowering plants up here and can fill a field with vivid pink blossoms). He was SUCH a great horse and was my buddy. My cats names were Raven (he was black, of course - and ravens are a huge part of native Alaskan legends) and Johann (named after Bach). Now I don't have horses or cats, just dogs.

Ahhhh, memories!

Melanie and the gang in Alaska

[max5105]

When I went to Ohio to pick up the 3-4 month old chow mix posted on this site, the office manager, Patti, said "It's odd, but we never gave him a name." He was with them for at least a month. All the other "strays" they encountered got names - but not him. To me it was an omen that this litlle furry monster would become loving member of our family. I decided to call him Misiu (Mee - shoo), which is Polish for "little furry one", although it is often translated as "little bear". Polish was the language of my mother, and the first language I spoke as a child. I think this was a way to keep in touch with my past, and some of my culture, and to pass it on to my kids as well. Life is strangely interesting that way!

[Junglee]

Max full name is Jung Lee Little Max.
Month before we find Max and we were not decided to have a dog or not, we were thinking to call our dog Mookie. But when we first saw Max we knew Mookie won’t go with His Royal Fluffiness.
Besides, my husband’s second name is Maximilian. And when I say Maximilian both “men” answer. The only difference is that one of them wags his tail.


Ramona

[Laura]

Shug is named after Shug Jordan who coached Auburn for many many years. The stadium is also named particially for him...Jordan-Hare stadium. I wanted an Auburnish name but nothing worked until Shug because he is just so sweet and cute. I said it outloud and it clicked. Hubby wanted a Zeus or Thor type name but he got over-ruled...hehe.
Chloe...I just liked the name and she was a little cute shy thing so she needed a cutesie girlie name.
I had a Nanook as well and Kody which was really Kodiak...both Alaska bear names.
BTW great thread...love reading how everyone picked the names.

[chowfrnd88]

Special Dark after the Hershey's chocolate becasue he is both extremely Special and extrememly Dark. At first it was just a joke between hubby and I, I would call him that because we couldn't come up with a perfect name and then we realized that was the perfect name. He actually responded to it almost instantly. Besides, I love the fact that I get to call my little biscuit breath "Special" all the time.

I know it's a faux pas because the name starts with an S and it's super long, both of which make it harder for the pup to learn the name, but like I said, he took to it almost instantly. I think he knows how special he is. I ask him all the time if he realizes it.

[Cara&Haley]

I went out 2 years ago on valentine's day and Cara grabbed my pants.
Anyway, long story short, I took her home. It was raining so I took out everything in my purse and put her inside. Went to look for a cab, it was rush hour and raining.. couldn't get one. I didn't want her to get wet, the purse was too small to cover all of her so I sneaked into the subway. I threw my coat over her and maneuvered my way pass all the guards. Got a seat and her head popped out. People oooh-ed and ahhhhh-ed It was a 45 minute ride and she soon fell asleep. As I was holding her, I keep thinking "little darling". I was living in Italy before China, so I named her Cara, Italian for darling/dear.

Haley took a few days... she's black and her baby name was Black Pearl, Hei Zhu. People were calling her Xiao Hei, Little Black. I wanted to keep the Hei in her name, and she became Haley. Her nickname is Nini and she responds to that too.

[Sahara91]

Xhena - because she lived upto the title of "Warrior Princess"! Looks like a princess on the outside, and seemed like a princess when I first met her (little wobbly shy black ball of fluff), but once she settled down she soon showed her warrior side I spelt it with a H because I prefer unusual names.

[PurpleKisses]

We named Chi-Ching because we figured he would end up costing us a fortune.......little did we know how true that would be!!!! hehe

[Piff Poff]

We wanted a good English name and maybe something regal for our chowling. We plumped for Henry as it seemed to suit him so well. Henry is also the first name of my hubbies favourite car maker.

If I am lucky enough to get a girl, I am thinking Betty or Molly.

[Auddymay]

Pip was named for a monkey in a children's book named Pippo. That was her original name, but it quickly morphed to Pippy. Lily was the compromise we came up with. We debated her name for nearly a week, and we had to come up with one. I originally wanted CoCo, Haley wanted Cloe, then waffled. She finally came up with Lillian, and I preferred Lily. So she became Lily An Wu. They are in the Wu Clan, headed by one Kitsy Wu...lol.

[puddinglove]

Besides for animals, I love food, and that has always been the theme for naming pets in our household. Ginger (large Maine Coon mix) was the first. She stole my heart at the animal shelter when she climbed onto my head (she was 4 months old and much smaller then), so I took her home. Ginger fits her completely, both for coloring and personality. She is feisty and can take care of herself.

Then came Honey, a small black and white long hair mix. She came from the same animal shelter and came home with me because I felt so sorry for her. She was older, bony, shy, and her fur was wild from malnutrition, and I didn't think there would be too much interest in her. Her shelter name was Martha, but that didn't fit my food-name requirement. Honey seemed to fit since she is so sweet and SUCH a cuddlebug, after she came out of her shell. So Honey - sweet and sticks to you! She is the most well-tempered cat I have ever met and will actually come when called.

Now for Pudding. I've always had several reserve pet names (Pudding, Dumpling, Dim Sum) and was waiting to use them when the right candidate came along. When Kit Carson, who lives near Dallas, from LA Chow Rescue sent me a picture of the cream colored fluff ball, I knew Pudding was just right. They had named her Vanilla Sky, but we changed it to Pudding. And it fits with her color, her sweetness, and how she wiggles all over when she's excited.

[TJordan]

Obviously Butters is named after Butters on Southpark. They have the same personality. And Yes I did make him a aluminum foil cape and hat but he was too scared to wear it!! Go Figure

[Coco Chow]

Long before I knew about chowchows, I wanted a female dog and thought Baba would be a good name.
I wanted the name to be:
-short
-not showing if the dog was a male or female
-not a thing or a human name, I didn't want the name to mean anything else than my pet's name, you see.
As I love double syllabe names, Baba was a real good name to me.

Then I found out I wanted a chow and we adopted her from a breeder. And actually we had to choose a name starting with a C !
I could have changed Baba to Caca but *caca* means *poop* in french, so no way!

So I choose Coco.
It has all the above qualities, and it has round phonemes only, which makes it nice to pronounce. Coco has round ears, round nose and round butt so it's perfect.
I must add I'm a synesthete and I see "coco" as beige and yellow, which is nearly her real colors!

[CT Appa]

Obviously Butters is named after Butters on Southpark.

I was always wondering about that and I'm glad that I was right haha...that's so funny.

Appa got his name from a cartoon. It's on Nickelodeon and it's called Avatar the Air Bender. He's named for the main character's flying bison.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appa

Appa was in the shelter for a couple days when we saw him and he came up to my fiancee and I like Appa did in the cartoon. Sometimes I call him Appamaru after the dog in Naruto, named Akamaru.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akamaru_%2 ... 29#Akamaru

We have been watching a lot of animation since the writer's strike haha

[Brandy's mom]

Hmmm... how far back should I go? The first dog my ex husband and I got was a rescue Samoyed - he was about 1 year old and he looked like giant cloud - all soft - I thought it was a stupid name for a beautiful dog, but my ex won out and he became Puff - I used to call him Puff the Magic Doggie. Then we bought a Sammy puppy from a breeder in Iowa - he looked like a tiny white teddy bear so I named him Malenke Medved (Russian for Little Bear) and called him Bear. I can certainly see the chow in the Samoyed/Samoyed in the chow - don't have any pictures of Puff downloaded, but this is Bear as a pup:

and shortly before I had to have him put to sleep 10 years later (hip dysplasia and nothing was working to keep him out of pain):


After Bear died, we got a rescue Himalayan cat whose name was Mimosa. We changed it to Mimi - she was a sweetie, and when we got divorced and I moved back to Georgia, I let the ex keep her because he loved her as much as I did, and she was up in years and I didn't want to upset her life:



Then came Honey - my late husband and I found her foraging along the side of major highway outside Cartersville, GA. She almost instantly became Honey because of her color and because she was such a "Honey of a dog!"



A year later, our next doggie entered our yard and our hearts - my husband named him Ralph (god knows why!) He (my husband) used to call him rrrrrralphie!



Ivanhoe, a black standard poodle that belonged to a friend who could no longer keep him, came to live with us nextl He and Ralphie became BEST buddies - if you took one out without the other, whoever was left behind would cry, but if you took Honey and left Ralph and Ivan, they were fine! Haven't downloaded his pics yet, either ...

Ivan passed 8 months after my husband died; Ralphie crossed the Rainbow Bridge on 12/20/06, and Honey crossed 12/27/07. When I told Honey I could never replace her and I wasn't going to get another doggie - at least for a while - she "told" me that I had to give another dog without a home a good and loving home ... I found Alisha on Petfinder.com about a week later. I changed her name to Brandy because of her coloring, and because I sing Brandy, you're a fine girl, what a good dog (wife) you would be ... to her!




By the way - just out of curiosity - do you think Brandy is a red or a cinnamon?

Cecelia

[jacqui]

Cecelia,Brandy looks red to me but its hard to tell in pictures.shes a very pretty girl.
I've named my chows Asian names because they're Chinese.
my 1st chow was a black male- Chang
a smooth red girl-Jade
a cinnamon male-Tiko
a red smooth girl-Chyna
a red smooth male-Kito
a black male- Kia
I renamed Jade.her breeder had named her Lotus and I didn't think that was a pretty name.she didn't answer to it.but she loved her new name and it suited her.

[coleywoley]

Okay so I guess I'll go through the whole pack. Starting with Ginger Snap. She just has the coloring for a Ginger and I love Ginger Snap cookies. Bel, the bloodhound, is short for Belvadear (I have no idea how to spell it) and he came with the name. Max, the dachshund, is short for Maxwell Q Clinger. My mom named him when before he fell in love with me and became my special boy. Poppy, the stray cat that adopted us, started out as puppy. She follows you around if you go for a walk, runs for the door when you come home, climbs in your lap and tries to kiss you, just in general acts like a dog. I was worried that calling a cat puppy might confuse Soph so we changed it to poppy which is much more girly and pretty.

[ChowLady]

My first chow was a black and his name was chan chow black le chang and I called him chang for short. Then along came Acechow Jenna whom we call Jenna, Catbalou, Nikita, Koysta Kajar which I call Koysta, chiaqo Tiesha Gaye wich I call Tiesha, Zebadee Chi Chi Black Labe which I call Chi Chi, Mylor Tiara and the newest addition to our family is Quonchy. Jenna and Nikita do not live with us anymore as they live the next street over with family and they often come for visits. sadly Chang and Catbalou have passed over the rainbow bridge. I wouldnt be without my chows.

[pfordeb]

The Lost Boys -- one of my all time favorite movies -- funniest lines ever (it is a horror movie for those uninitiated, but has intentionally great lines). And even though, I'm more in the age range of Diane Wiest and Edward Herrman, some of the cutest guys on film. Even the two Coreys for those of you in your 20s or 30s. I have mentioned before that all my dogs have 3 names plus countless nicknames -- most of which have the oo sound (such as Gilbert -- Goober Pyle, for obvious reasons, I've also mentioned).

Hey Ai Shu -- your eye shu look better (ooh, terrible, and I even hate puns).

[pfordeb]

The Lost Boys -- one of my all time favorite movies -- funniest lines ever (it is a horror movie for those uninitiated, but has intentionally great lines). And even though, I'm more in the age range of Diane Wiest and Edward Herrman, some of the cutest guys on film. Even the two Coreys for those of you in your 20s or 30s. I have mentioned before that all my dogs have 3 names plus countless nicknames -- most of which have the oo sound (such as Gilbert -- Goober Pyle, for obvious reasons, I've also mentioned).

Hey Ai Shu -- your eye shu look better (ooh, terrible, and I even hate puns).

Caca means poop in every language, I think but must have some French/Latin root? Maybe because it's the color of cocoa -- yuck.

[Jeff&Peks]

The Lost Boys -- one of my all time favorite movies -- funniest lines ever (it is a horror movie for those uninitiated, but has intentionally great lines). And even though, I'm more in the age range of Diane Wiest and Edward Herrman, some of the cutest guys on film. Even the two Coreys for those of you in your 20s or 30s. I have mentioned before that all my dogs have 3 names plus countless nicknames -- most of which have the oo sound (such as Gilbert -- Goober Pyle, for obvious reasons, I've also mentioned).

Hey Ai Shu -- your eye shu look better (ooh, terrible, and I even hate puns).

I thought you came up with Gilbert and Sullivan becouse you were musical buffs when you first came on I thought great names and creative on your part. Owell so much for me thinking your two Chows are into Showtunes and opera.

[pfordeb]

We had Sullivan first and that was her name when we got her from the Humane Society. For all our dogs, we've kept the name they got at the shelter, rescue, whatever, then added 2 family names. Gilbert is Forrest's brother's name so he couldn't resist. So Forrest is the creative one. The guy at the shelter where we got Charlie said we should have named him Andy so we would have had Gilbert andy Sullivan -- too late.

Once again, for the record:

Sullivan Maire Lillith
Gilbert Kirby Mac
Charles Robert Scooter

[sweetpea]

lol, here I thought Gilbert and Sullivan where named under the same creative reason Jeff had said! I thought of Gilbert and Sullivan, Gilbert O Sullivan.

We usually dont have a fancy reason for naming pets. I had a Husky I named Bojangles. that came from the song Mr. Bojangles.
With Gracie it was simply me getting all these names written out,trying to narrow it down. My daughter Alicia came over one day and said "GRACIE!". Guess she caught me in just the right mood because I liked it better than all the other names. And so my baby was named Gracie.