The Associated Press recently released a series of articles about dog names. Through tracking pet names by city licenses, it is apparent more dogs are getting human names instead of "Binky", "Rover" or "Spot".
This is, no doubt, the result of the increasing importance of animals in our lives. People consider their animals more like family members, siblings or children than the poor dog who lived on the porch and barked all night, occasionally biting the mailman. As a dog breeder, I get answers on my questionnaire to this effect. "It would be like the 3rd child in the house," or , "We'd like a little sister for our [human] son."
As a kid, I jumped on the human-name-for-a-dog bandwagon around 1989 when "Libby" came into my life. Libby was born on Thanksgiving day of 1989, hence, she was named "Libby's Solid Packed Pumpkin".
The next addition to the household was a male Weimaraner in 1991. He was the son of the top producing dog in the country at the time. He was averaging 60 champions a year and was aptly named "Easy". I was a Star Trek fan at the time, so the dog ended up named Stuart after Patrick Stewart. It's funny, all these years later, Stuart is now a popular name for new human baby boys. Stuart's character would have better matched up with "Stewie" from "Family Guy" than the overly-noble starship captain.
Time went along and we added dogs with various meanings or origins to their names. Sophie came along in 1994, named after the Hagia Sophia, a beautiful and ornate mosque in Istanbul. Her puppies, 3 years later in 1997 were named mostly after historical characters given what I was studying in college. Truman after Harry Truman, Tom after Thomas Jefferson and Byron after Lord Byron. Small wonder, the three of them grew up to hate each other.
In 1998 Anna Mae came back with me from Houston in a little under-the-seat carrier. She had more meanings to her name than any of her predecessors. First, my grandmother was named Anna Marie. Next, Anna Mae was Tina Turner's name before Ike dug his claws into her and "What's Love Got To Do With it" had been on television just previous to that. She was the beginning of a long string of family-related names including James (great-grandfather), Shorty (grandfather's nickname), Minnie (great-grandmother), Louise, Pete, Vincent and Dave.
And now there's Babs...
Babs is short of Barbara which is not really a very popular name anymore. A recent article in the Colorado Springs Gazette titled "Where are all the Barbaras?" pointed out much the popularity of names changes through generations. I only know one Barbara personally and she goes by "Barb." Babs was my grandmother's sister. My Mother didn't really get a chance to know her and of course, I never met her. She did leave behind the most delicious fluffy ginger cookie recipe and a few photos, which is all the family really has. The name is short, cute and I have a chance to tell the story of how I named her every time someone asks. Amazingly a lot of the people I know have named their dogs in similar fashion, after their grandmother, a lost friend or just something that made them happy by saying it.
Dog name links
Parenthood.com
Babynames.com
Dog-names.us
Dog Names @ Next Day Pets
Shakespearean Names
Greek and Roman Mythological Gods