Spilling the kibble: How do you choose names for animals?

Jabba the Mutt? Princess Prissypaws? Toilet Paper Roll 19?

Silly, witty or downright quirky, names can bring a lot of attention to your adoptable animals and showcase your organization’s sense of humor.

Names can also serve a practical purpose, says Kim Haden, operations and community programs coordinator for Friends of Montgomery County Animals, a foster-based rescue in Maryland. When you have multiple litters of kittens or puppies, a naming theme (such as comic book superheroes or cooking spices) for each litter is a useful memory aid for keeping track of who’s who.

“It makes them memorable and easier to reference,” says Haden, who once fostered a litter of black-and-white kittens named for stars of black-and-white films.

For many teams, the challenge of thinking up clever puns, cultural references and oddball monikers adds some lighthearted relief to the intake process. Just don’t go overboard on the humor front, Haden warns. You might use them affectionately, but names like J’Maul, Scratchy and Stinky Butt are apt to give potential adopters pause.

In Haden’s experience, most adopters don’t choose a pet based solely on their name, and many eventually rename their new companion. Even so, the right pre-adoption name can help an animal stand out from the crowd and boost their online profile.

Plus, there’s always the chance a name will go big in an unexpected way.

That’s what happened in 2020 when the Lynchburg Humane Society in Virginia named a middle-aged black kitty after Dennis Quaid. The real-life actor ultimately adopted his feline namesake, and the story went viral—bringing a wave of attention to the shelter and its animals.

In our latest "Spilling the kibble" column, shelter and rescue workers share their organizations’ naming strategies, along with some of their all-time favorite pet names. We hope their stories inspire your team the next time you’re playing the naming game.

“We are fans of a good punny name: Reese Whiskerspoon, Brad Kitt, Robert Buniro. Also ridiculous names that make us giggle: Lunchbox, Big Chungus, Cheese Board. Anything for a smile, and it doesn’t hurt that they are extra fun to promote.” —Kasey Bielecki, Pope Memorial Humane Society, Thomaston, Maine

“It’s definitely kinda whatever our intake team is feeling. I personally tend to go for species of animals and trees and minerals, but we also end up with a lot of food names. My favorites recently have been: Large Celery, Sizeable Onion, Baby Jane Doe, Sudden Leigh and Imposter (the sweet finders swore up and down he was a mom cat, and he was 3- to 4-month-old male).

If an animal is owned or knows their name, we keep it where we can. We also try to avoid double-naming (no new dogs named Bella; they only keep that if they know it). Names have to be relatively easy to pronounce and, of course, not inappropriate. If they’re named something like ‘Killer,’ we’ll rename them with something similar sounding like ‘Miller.’” —Mallory Uzel, Asheville Humane Society, North Carolina

“We tend to do themes with litters. But my all-time favorite was a cat named William Shakespurr.” —Jackie Peery, Fayetteville Animal Protection Society, North Carolina

“I named a mouse Anita Cookie once. Favorite cat names I am waiting to be able to use in the perfect scenario: Princess Donut and Queen Anne Chonk (because I am obsessed with the Dungeon Crawler Carl book series). Favorite dog names were Indiana Bones and Moo Deng (because we had a lowrider who looked like a baby hippo!).” —Paulina Kossakowski, Cleveland Animal Protective League, Ohio

“I like fun/unusual names. Here are some of my favorites: Cheer Up Charlie, Guacamole Gary (the family kept that name), Official Bachelor, Princess Churu, Moonpie, Yeti (he was hit by a car in the middle of a snowstorm), Mrs. Wigglesworth, Grippy Socks, Obviously Cute.” —Kim Adams, Boone Area Humane Society, Boone, Iowa

“Anyone can name at our shelter. Mary Puppins, Bark Twain, Bilbo Waggins and Karl Barks are a few of my favorites. I’ve been wanting to use the name Akita Kurosawa but haven’t had the chance yet.” —Angela Semple, Humane Animal Rescue of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

“A big boy named LL Drool J was a particular favorite.” —Valerie Gesting, CITY DOGS Cleveland, Ohio

“We either come up with something random or take a photo and ask ChatGPT. Right now, we have a Mr. Doctor Professor, the Honorable Judge Zoomies and a Doctor Bacon Water. Doctor Bacon Water was because his Beggin’ strip fell in the full water bucket and he was still trying to get it.” —Amber Taylor, Public Animal Welfare Services, Rome, Georgia

“Every month our shelter does a different name theme. This month is Scooby Doo characters; last month was Dr. Seuss characters. We’ve done so many different themes, including Squishmallows, popular toys, cities in a certain state/country, Taylor Swift songs, Harry Potter characters, vehicle makes/models, Pokémon, crayon colors, Lord of the Rings, WWE wrestlers, etc.” —Hannah Page, Ingham County Animal Control and Shelter, Michigan

“We don’t have a set method to choose, just nothing vulgar or controversial. My department raised a number of litters in our office, so we got to name them and always chose a theme. A couple of my favorite individual names were Snert (from a litter of soup and stew names) and Scourge of the Seven Seas (pirate ships). My favorite overall litter theme was onomatopoeia: Zap, Twang, Buzz, Fizz.” —Melissa Klett, Anti-Cruelty, Chicago, Illinois

“We try to give our foster volunteers the opportunity to name kittens because that’s fun. We encourage them to pick a theme, and then we play on that theme in each kitten’s profile description. Some of my favorites include a sewing theme (Thimble, Bobbin, Singer) and an English tea party theme (Crumpet, Biscuit, Earl Grey). I’m still waiting to get a litter of four kittens with two males and two females, with one of the females being orange, so I can name them Lucy, Ricky, Ethel and Fred.” —Kim Haden, Friends of Montgomery County Animals, Maryland