I have had several pets throughout my life and I've never named any of them until after I met them. I agree, they actually do name themselves. I adopted my dog (RIP) 8 years ago, his name was Boots. I named him Boots because the color of his fur was different on his feet, so he looked like he was wearing boots. I currently have a cat named Greedy. I named her this because out of all the cats I helped rescue in one week, she was the skinniest, most scrawniest one and the one that ate the most. She would actually bully all the other kittens out of their food. It was both sad and funny. I've had a lot more pets, if you want to know more naming stories let me know.
I agree with Worldmachine wholeheartedly when it comes to naming pets. I do the same thing. My sweet cats I all named when I held them and they loved their names and came when I call them. I miss having a pet cat now! I always named my cats with dignified names.
To be honest I am not sure if I have ever heard of the whole let them name themselves technique, but I have to say I kind of like it. I have always just named them right off the bat, and it is usually based on something or someone that I have in mind already. I kind of wish that I would have tried the other way though. Maybe the next pet I get I will let them name themselves and see what we come up with.
My husband and I decided on a name for our Alaskan Malamute before we got her. We wanted to give her a good Malamute name like Yukon or Koda. One evening I was watching Pocahontas and she has a raccoon friend name Meeko. I instantly knew that we were going to name our pup that. So when we went to go pick out our puppy we were going to name is Meeko if we picked out a boy and Meeka if we picked a girl. When we got there, there was one puppy that kept coming up to me and we need she was ours. Meeka has been apart of our favorite for 4 years now and I love her very much!
I have always been the official namer of the pets. I did this as a child when I had many cats named after soap opera characters and I do it now that I am the Mom of the house. We have two dogs. A white Boxer girl who was given to me by a friend and her name was already Sugar. So I stuck on a middle name and she became Sugar Love. Although, she will come just as easily when you call her Sugar Butt or Sugar Britches! lol Our other little dog is a cute terrier mix boy. I got him from a lady who was looking to rehome him. Why I don't know because he is a perfectly well behaved little sweetie. Anyway, they had called him Max, which I thought was dull and plain. My youngest daughter wanted to name him Kirby and that fit him perfectly, so he became Kirby Max.
With the pets that I have had in my life I have always known their names before hand and was kind of saving them up for some time before getting them. I kind of do want to go the other way, though, but I am the kind of person who cannot help but prepare for something like that so that might not work. I do like pets with little human names like Jim and Ted though, so maybe I will just go off the cuff next time and go with that.
