Naming Pet Cats - A Cat Called Sheep

They soon acquire nicknames. One day you absent-mindedly call your cat 'Scruffpot' after it brings half the wilderness home in its fur and before you know it, the name has stuck (the same happened to a colleague of mine. One day I jokingly called him Scruff because he came to work unshaven. Next thing we know, most of the workforce calls him Scruff and it's my fault. Nowadays he even answers to Scruff - and he's the manager!) .

Pratchett was right. Nicknames just happen. Fatso or Scruffbag are highly descriptive of the gourmet (or gourmand) or the beaten up cat in your life. Dribbles probably stuck after Pussywillow's dental operation. Precious, Angel and Baby describe that special cat-human bond (Oi-you-b*st*rd also describes the cat-human bond, but not in quite the same way). A pair of pesky kittens who originally sported names bigger than themselves i.e. Marmaduke and Montgomery, somehow got re-christened Trouble and Pest in a Freudian slip of the tongue.

We can spend ages deliberating over a suitable name for our new friend, or becoming acquainted with the name it arrived with when you adopted it. Students of quantum mechanics call their cats Schrodinger or Heisenberg while car mechanics call their cats Castrol or Sparky. The name has to fit in with the furniture as well as suiting the cat. I started off with Scrapper and Kitty - two no-nonsense cat names. Then, due to circumstances beyond my control (it's a woman thing, okay?) I ended up with a cat for whom the only suitable name was Aphrodite. Scrapper, Kitty and Aphrodite - spot the odd one out. Scrapper, Kitty and Affy sounded much better.

Whatever name your cat starts off with, one day that carefully considered, descriptive or meaningful name will be superseded by some upstart spur of the moment nickname like Rugtiddler. Sometimes, our cats entirely lose their original names. One of my first cats, Keta, was a beautiful tabby named after the pattern on Keta Salmon, but became plain old 'Kitty' (even at the vets). 'That-motley-colored-stray-cat-is-begging-for-food-again' became 'Motley' when she moved in permanently and now she's just 'Smots'.

Even worse, some topical names may be politically correct when the cat is named but fall out of favor. 'Timoshenko' was named after a Russian war hero, but became 'Timmy' when his Russian name became unfashionable. Oddly enough, the name of a certain Prussian dictator (the one with the moustache) has never become unfashionable for cats with over-developed predatory skills. Cats respond best to short names and longer names soon get shortened to one or two easily shouted syllables derived from the cat's original name. Or then again, the one or two easily shouted syllables may be derived from some completely unrelated phrase which was employed during the great 'pungent puddle on the pillow' episode.

There are those who believe that a cat's name influences its character. A nervous outdoor-living cat known as One-ear became much friendlier when renamed Pretty-ear. The owner probably gave off more positive signals when calling out Pretty-ear and the cat responded to the changed tone of voice rather than the changed name. And those who character or appearance influences their nicknames - not for nothing are some of my oldest cats nicknamed Methuselah. My parents always referred to Kitty-II as 'clockwork cat' because in later life, Kitty-II's forelegs became rather stiff.

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