What's In A Name?

When I began the process of buying my new kittens, naturally one of the first things I began to think about was names.

When my first Burmese kittens came home with me in 2010, the initial plan was to get a boy and a girl.  My breeder Kristy lived just half an hour away from me, so it was easy to go and meet the kittens when they were just a few weeks old.  It turned out that two litters had been born just a few days apart to two different mothers.  Both litters had been sired by the same father, a lovely big Burmese boy with a very smoochy personality. 

When I arrived, there was a fair bit to take in.  The household featured two small children and a large dog as well as all the residents of the cattery.  The kitten nursery was filled with bouncing, pouncing, playful bundles of joy that were so little that they each fit neatly into the palm of my hand.  The boy kitten destined to come home with me was such a sweet, adorable little thing.  He was a beautiful blue Burmese who touched noses with me, snuggled into my neck and purred.  I noticed that he didn’t seem quite as robust as his brothers and sisters, but I assumed he’d been playing hard just before I arrived and was therefore ready for sleepy time.  Sadly, I was wrong.  Kristy contacted me a few weeks later to tell me that my little boy had died.  The vet believed that he had some form of underlying genetic condition.  Fortunately none of the other kittens seemed similarly affected.

Kristy knew I’d wanted to buy two kittens so they’d have each other for company during the day while I was at work.  One of the other kittens, a beautiful little lilac girl, was originally destined to stay with Kristy to become a show cat and have kittens of her own.  Given the unexpected death of my little boy, would I like to take her home instead?  Yes, I would.  That’s how my lovely Mindy came to join her sister Sally and live with me.

I’d already spent some time thinking about what to name my lovely smoochy little boy.  I’d planned for his name to be Oskar.  I liked the idea of his name being spelled a little differently to the more usual Oscar and I preferred not to think of him sharing a name with the grouchy character from Sesame Street.  Unfortunately, he didn’t live to receive his name.

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Fast forward to 2023 and now I’m once again thinking about names for cats after the tragic death of my longtime companion Sally, who I absolutely adored.  In the midst of my grief, I began planning quickly to find some kittens as I knew it might take time to locate a breeder with a litter available.  After a few twists and turns, it eventuated that the two kittens available for purchase were both boys.  Here was my chance to resurrect the name of Oskar.  The little cream boy was the first one chosen to come home with me, so he duly became Oskar.  One down.

Now what am I going to call the other one?

I tend to prefer human names for my pets, so that eliminated familiar cat monikers such as Puss, Ceefer or Whiskers.  I thought about naming them according to their colour, as I’d been raised with a beautiful pure white cat called Snowy.  However, the kitten needing the new name was lilac.  If I was naming a girl, I could have settled on Violet, Lavender or even Daphne at a stretch, but I couldn’t find a name in that spectrum that appeared to suit a boy. 

I didn’t want the name to be too common, so that eliminated popular names for cats in Australia such as Oliver, Leo, Milo, Charlie, and Max.  I also preferred to steer clear of famous cat names from literature and movies, such as Tom, Felix, Sylvester, Aslan, or Simba.  I have a penchant for lovely Celtic names such as Kierin, Killian, Cormac, Llewellyn and Eamonn, but none of them felt quite right for my new little boy.  My best friend has recently named her dog Angus, so while I love that name, I didn’t want to follow suit and create any confusion.  I wanted the new boy’s name to feature a different vowel sound from his brother, so that each kitten would find it easier to learn and respond to his name.  Decisions, decisions.

Ever since I’d made the decision to purchase my kittens, I’d started collecting names.  As writers, we’re always on the lookout for good character names, and so this task moved slightly into the feline domain for a little while.  Over the course of the next few months, while I waited for the boys to reach the age when they could leave their mother, I kept an eagle eye out for possibilities. 

Cadbury.  I’d written that one down when I still didn’t know what colour the kittens were.  If one of them had been a chocolate Burmese, that might have been a fun option.  He probably would have been Caddy for short, but I thought Cadbury would sound impressive when being called in the vet’s waiting room.

Archie.  I quite like this one.  Archibald feels a little too formal for my liking, but Archie has a nice solid ring to it.  I already know a few Archies, however, and ultimately I decided to go a different way.  I’m enjoying reading the recent chapters of Jim Wile’s novel and noticing that his main character coincidentally has a lovely ginger cat named Archie.  I was obviously onto a good thing.  :)

Adina, Lindsay, Bonnie and Freya.  These were all options before I confirmed that both my cats were boys.  I knew of someone locally who had a gorgeous Burmese girl cat named Bonnie and that name was definitely high on my list.

Ramsey.  This felt like an interesting option that sounded vaguely to me like an international British spy.

Bailey.  This is quite a cute name, but as a teacher, I’ve taught a million Baileys and some of them have been quite annoying.  Pass.  :)

Benji.  Cute, but really more of a name for a dog rather than a cat (in my opinion).

Hamish.  I really like this name, but it conjures up images of an old Australian television advertisement for Pal dog food, featuring a Scottish terrier with a broad Highland accent.  I assume this was no anthropomorphic miracle and that the voiceover was actually provided by a human.  :)

Monty.  I’ve known several dogs called Monty, or Montgomery, and while I quite like the name, I just wasn’t sure whether it would suit a kitten.

The final option on my little list was Harley.  I have no interest in Harley Davidson motorcycles, so it didn’t owe its origins to that.  It sounds a little more modern and original than some of the other names on my list.  It features a different vowel sound from the name Oskar, as intended, and I thought that these two names sounded good together.  Harley it was.

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What tipped the balance?  Why did I finally settle on Oskar and Harley?

Ultimately, I just like the names.  :)