Wednesday, December 20, 2006

This Is What's In A Name

It looks like, through a rather unfortunate circumstance, my friend might be getting a dog. He is very excited about this, as sad as the circumstance surrounding it is. We charged ourselves yesterday with coming up for a name for this potential pup. It is a task I believe to be more difficult than naming a baby and here's why.

Dog names (or pet names in general) are tricky. For instance, you wouldn't call a baby (unless you were insane) Rover or Fido. But those names work for a pet. So if nothing else, it seems the pool for potential names is much larger for pets than babies and so, therein, a more difficult task.
You want to anthropomorphize the pet name, if you can; you also don't want to have a dog named Bob. You want them to be cute, reflective of personality and creative, yet uncomplicated at the same time.

Now the dog they will get (if, again, they do) will be a female dog. Female dog names are even trickier because the tendency, the more creative you get, is to make them more masculine. I came up with putting a Miss in front on whichever name you like, irrespective of gender insinuation.

My selection: Miss Tumnus. Tumnus was the fawn in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. I like Miss Tumnus -- it's a rather incandescent name. Also on the table: Mrs. Darcy -- and if you've seen the movie or read the book, you know how illuminating a name it is.

Of course, readers, have no worries, my child will not be named after a fawn, troll, hobbit, elf or klingon. Maybe a Romulan, though. Perhaps even a Ferengi.

Actually, his name was very easy to decide upon and if you know me, it will come as no surprise when I do reveal the name.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like cracking codes. Let me see, if it is Mark Lenard (Romulan pic) who also was a Vulcan and a Klingon in the Star Trek Genre. Three personalities in one. Hmmmm! Religous tone, thus, a religious name for the baby boy.....Ishbosheth or Mephibosheth...Alas...Ishbosheth Mephibosheth Guest (IMG), or reverse, which would result in MIG, as in Fighter Plane...or a relative....I am cracked.

AaronG said...

Yes...you are cracked. And you are also very funny...with way too much time on your hands...but still...very clever.

Anonymous said...

As the future owner of the dog, I feel obligated to post. The problem with both Miss Tumnus and Mrs. Darcy is that I have never met a dog with a prefix - whether miss, mrs., mr., dr., or president. Though now that I mention it, dr. so-and-so would be pretty funny. Alas, it does not work because while it may be funny at first, eventually its gonna get old and you will resort to calling the dog by the name without the prefix - which works with Mrs. Darcy but not so much with Miss Tumnus because Tumnus was a guy.

Right now I'm going with Fida. Its the girl form of Fido in Spanish. Isn't that what you told me in my birthday card Aaron?

AaronG said...

Yes...you're very much making up crap -- and occasionally you're good at it.

I disagree with you on the notion that the prefix would eventually be dropped however. Miss Tumnus is not a very difficult name to utter -- in fact in comes off very easy. Now, if it were Mrs. Frankweiler -- well, that would be mixed up quite easily and I may concede your point there. But Miss Tumnus or Mrs. Darcy can be sustained because they are uncomplicated by syllabic potholes. It flows quite naturally off the tongue.

As for fida, that's just a stupid name -- it means nothing and, honestly, lacks the creativity I know you're capable of. I'd be willing to drop the Miss Tumnus campaign if you stopped considering Fida. I think you need a character name from literature, it suits you better... we'll come up with something.

And btw, it's Further Up and Further In.

Anonymous said...

How about Miss Rose O, she is quite a dog..or a pig