Do You Call Your Cat By His or Her Given Name?

Do You Call Your Cat By His or Her Given Name?

Originally published Feb 3, 2011

When Rags was 14 years old (I was 24), I decided to take him to a new vet.  When they were getting ready to give him a shot for something or other, they told me to talk to him while they did it – so I started out, “Hi Freegie, are you my little Poo-Poos?”  And the vet as well with the vet technician looked at me and said, “This is Rags Dean, right?”

I said, “Yes, of course.”  And then realized that I hadn’t called him by his given name during the course of the shot, so I followed it up with the fact that I rarely call my cats by their given names.  Some people have told me that it is really weird that I don’t.

So, it made me wonder, “Do you call your cat by his or her given name?” 

Here are the list of cats that I have lived with and what I called/call them.

Rags = Poo-Poos, Raggle Muffin, Freegie, Freeg

Alley = Ms. Booder or just Booder
Caymus = Nussy, Cay-Cay Nusser, Baby New
Murphy = Beau, Cy Beau, Smurphy
Charlie = Charlamagne, Sharlie, Bubbie, Charlie-man-sers, Wubbie, WubbieBoo, Wubbie Boo Boo
Trigg = Chiggy Wiggy Woo Woo, Triggerman, Chigga, Triggy, Gaussy (after Carl Friedrich Gauss), Gausing

Trigg and Charlie are 5 years old, so their nicknames are bound to change and develop more.

If you have a nickname or a plethora of nicknames for your kitty, I would be curious to know what your kitty’s given name is and what you actually call them!