Unique Puppy Names

Remy

This “Ode to Remy” is courtesy of my favorite cousin in the world, Dennis. Years ago, he’d done the grown up thing, bought a house , moved in with his fiancee and, the most grown-up move of all…got a dog. Denisn bandied about a couple of dog name choices, but finally settled on Remy, as tribute to Jerry Remy, former Boston Red Sox second baseman (yes, he’s a huge baseball fan), Remy Martin (showing that not only is he old enough to drink, but he’s particular about his spirits), and his new pup’s tendency to “dance” while in her REM sleep stage.

Willy

My name is Trent and when I was a little boy I always wanted a dog just like the one next store. His name was “Willy.” Almost 30 years passed and I got a wife and two sons…. but I have always wanted a “Willy” dog and told my wife about it.

One Saturday, my wife told me and the kids that we were going to the Labrador Rescue Society. I was skeptical but we went anyway.

There where at least 40 labs at this Ranch Farm house. I yelled, “Come here Willy,” and only one dog came, with a toy in its mouth and a wagging tail. It dropped the toy so I threw it. Several other dogs went for it too but this dog brought it back and dropped it at my feet again.

It was “Willy” at first sight. It was a female lab but my wife insisted this is “the one” and her name will be Wilhelmina and her nick name is “Willy” for short.

Normally, it costs $40.00 to adopt but the lady who runs the lab society refused payment saying that many others have wanted to adopt her but she ran away from them. We were the only family she wanted to “come” to.

That was almost five years ago and it is true that “dog’s are mans best friend.”

My wife is a pretty good cook and I have gained some weight. When she jokes and asks, “So, when are you due?” I laugh and say that our second lab, “Wonka,” is due anytime.

Mackenzie

We named our 1/2 St. Bernard 1/2 German Shepherd Mackenzie when we got him at 6 weeks old. We couldn’t agree on a name, but knew we wanted something ‘untraditional’, so we opened our atlas, closed our eyes, and pointed. We both pointed to the same Mackenzie River in Canada, and that became his name. Of course, after our 1st son was born when Mackenzie was only 2 years old, he couldn’t say his name, and instead called him “Dee-Dee”. He was both Mackenzie and Dee-Dee from then until he passed last year.

The freaky thing is that our youngest who is only 21 months old, and never really heard the name “Dee-Dee” (except as a wee infant) would point out the window many times, and get all excited, and yell “Dee-Dee!” over and over. This was just after Mackenzie died of cancer (in my arms) and there was never anything outside that we could see….wierd huh?

Stosh

We have three boys and my husband is a “Stanley William B*.” Boy, did he want the tradition to keep the name going but I could not do it. When we finally got a dog I decided we should give him his father’s name, Stosh, which is Polish for Stan (or so I’ve been told).

Copper

Our dog is a golden retriever that we got when he was about 7 weeks old.
The first time we saw the pups, they were just a few days old. They were so cute, they didn’t even have their eyes open yet.

It was a small litter of about 5 (I think) and I happened to pick one of them up. He was so tiny, he fit in the palm of my hand. I held him up close to my face and he started licking my chin.

I said to my husband, “this is the one!” The next time we saw them, they were little fuzz balls at about 14 days old. Oh my! they were so cute.

We took him home when he was 7 weeks and he sat on my husband’s lap the entire drive home from the breeder.

We named him Copper after Copper Mountain in Colorado as it is one of our favorite places to ski.

That was 6 years ago and Copper still thinks he’s a puppy.

Buster

My folks and I were visiting, with my mom’s new puppy, an adorable mini schnauzer, bouncing around at our feet.

Dad and I were relaying some stories from a very funny book we’d just read by comedian David Brenner (“Soft Pretzels with Mustard”). In one chapter, Brenner tells a story about meeting his idol, Buster Crabbe, when he was a kid. Buster, a former movie Tarzan, grabs Brenner, tosses him around a bit, then plunks him down on his shoulders, injuring the young Mr. Brenner’s family jewels. From that point forward, Brenner refers to him as “Buster Ball Buster.”

Coincidentally, our tale ended about the time Mom’s new puppy jumps up and nails my dad right where it hurts. Thus, “Buster” was born! RIP Beanies!

Angel, Polu, & Elekoni

Our girls named our first dog when we picked her up as a puppy. They thought “Angel” was a cute name so we went with that. Plus I thought it was an “interesting” name for an APBT (American Pit Bull Terrier).
Our next puppy was a boy (blue and white) so we named him Polu (blue in Hawaiian).

Then our third dog (puppy of the first two) we named Elekoni (elephant in Hawaiian). My husband just wanted to name his next dog “Elephant” because when our boy dog was young, he looked just like a baby elephant after he ate, color, fat stomach, short legs, etc.

Brownie

When we got our dog for my daughter’s 5th birthday, he was a brown and black fluff ball, part mini schnauzer, part who knows what.
All three of us at the same time said we should name him Brownie because he looked just like a brownie sitting in my daughter’s lap. So that’s what he became.

Of course, now that he’s 3 years old, the question we get all the time is “Why did you name him Brownie?” They ask us this because he doesn’t have a spot of brown on him, all his brown turned to silver!

Other times people think we named him after UPS because half the time we just call him Brown.

Sophie

We went to a shelter to look at a dog to give us something to nurture while we were struggling to conceive, and had our eye on a female we had seen on the website. While we were driving (in Houston traffic, so it took a while), we talked about possible names. We wanted to give our dog a “people name”, and wanted it to be something interesting, so we started going through names of characters from our favorite movies.

We love the Godfather movies, but there aren’t a lot of women in them. I said, “Hey, why don’t we name her after Sofia Coppola?” as a joke, because her performance in Godfather III is appallingly bad. (Yes, she’s a fantastic director, but seriously, watch the movie again and imagine how much better the movie would have been with a different actor) But my husband said, “Sofia? How about Sophie?”

The original dog we were going to look at wasn’t quite right for us, but there was a quiet, well behaved mutt who had been abandoned and obviously needed some love, so we adopted her and named her Sophie.

Bow

Our dog came to us as ‘Ollie,’ but it just didn’t feel like him. We tried out a few other ideas like Bear or Oso (because he looks like a little bear from behind, and we have ties to Mexico), Torbjorn from Overwatch, and even Indy.

In the end, we landed on Bow, named after the Bow River in Calgary, where my husband grew up. Two of our kids are dual American–Canadian citizens, so it felt like a perfect nod to both sides of our family story.

Simple, strong, and meaningful. it suits him perfectly.

Trapper

When I got pregnant with my oldest child I wanted a name that was unusual. My husband and I thought about this for months. At the time the name Hunter was not very popular and we really liked it so we went with the name Hunter.

When I got pregnant with my second child I was bound and determined to come up with an unusual name. My husband and I tried really hard to come up with something unusual. One day I was looking at Fisher-Price stuff and started thinking if this was two different names or one name. Funny thing to be thinking about. Well the name Fisher stuck with my husband and I, but instead of spelling it Fisher we spell it Fischer. So needless to say we had a Hunter and a Fischer (yes my husband loves to do both).

My grandmother started telling me (and everyone else) that we should have a third child named Trapper. So for years this has been a family/friend joke. Everyone always ask us when we are going to have Trapper.

Not too long ago we had 2 stray puppies wonder up. They are black labs. We decided to keep them and were trying to think of names. The female I named Trixie but we were having a hard time naming the male. Then it dawned on me that this could be my Trapper! You should have see everyone’s face when I told them that we finally had our Trapper 🙂

Sirius

My partner and I wanted our new puppy’s name to have some meaning behind it. Since we were both affected by 9/11 we decided to name our new puppy Sirius as a tribute to the only K-9 police officer killed on 9/11.

Blue Fish

We had a fish because we couldn’t get a dog, but my girl really wanted a dog instead, so we named the fish “Dog.”
The fish died and I went to get water (we have to haul 600 gal. of water per week from town, no water on our land) and this guy asked if I wanted this blue tick hound pup he had. I couldn’t resist so I said ok, and I was going to name him Fish because my girl’s fish named Dog died, but he was already sort of going by the name Blue, so his name is Blue Fish. Oh-and he’s a heck of a basketball player-go figure.

Marley

When I was about 5 months pregnant, my husband and I were out shopping. We didn’t yet know if our baby was a boy or a girl so we were still looking at all names. I heard a lady yell to her daughter “Marley, come over here”. I said “I love that name for a little girl!” My husband said “No way”. I said “fine, then I get to name the puppy Marley!”
Marley is our 2 year old brussels griffon.

Sapphire

I found my Siberian Husky wandering the streets of the town I live in. Thin, starving, flea ridden, I took her home and decided to keep her and give her a new start in life.

I found out her owners no longer wanted her and her previous name was horrible.

Looking for a new name I wanted somthing to reflect her beautiful blue..blue eyes. I named her sapphire. Perfect for such a beautiful husky ( my baby girl).

Barbara

We adopted a tiny rescue pup who looked far too dignified for the usual cute names. She had this serious little face (all business, no nonsense) and we joked that she looked like someone’s coworker from accounting.

One night we were tossing around names and my husband said, ‘She’s not a Daisy or a Lulu… she’s a Barbara.’
It made us laugh so hard we couldn’t let it go. Now ‘Barbara’ struts around like she’s running the place, complete with her own imaginary corner office. Everyone we meet says it fits her perfectly.