Well, I don't know how many dog names I have in mind. I have a thing for Greek myths, so that will give an idea. Athene would be for a female dog because I find it to be a beautiful and wise name. Heracles goes for a male Tosa.
Sevuk means blacky in armenian...kinda self explanitory in my case haha. My cousin came up with it the day we found him so it kinda stuck. If it was up to me I'd probably name him Casshew, because when he sleeps he looks like one to me...but Sevuk sounds better lol.
For future dogs, I'd probably just name them cute "dog" names, like Sharik(means round in russian). A lot of the names I like are either armenian or russian, most likely because that's just what I've grown up hearing all the time. I'm also a fan of anime/videogame names too.
Gen, those are really good names. I always feel like if I choose a Japanese name for my dog, I'll pick one that sounds stupid to Japanese people. Either it's nonsense or it's just some random name that sounds weird on a dog. Like if a Japanese person came over here and named their dog... I don't know... Douglas or Good Bird. Or Douglas Goodbird.
So, now I'm thinking of using Nintendo names, because they're recognized and used by North Americans, but Nintendo is Japanese, so it works for a Japanese-Canadian dog. The name I've been thinking of lately is Koopa or King Koopa. Koopas being the turtles from Mario Bros and King Koopa being their leader (duh) who is usually known as Bowser. Bowser's okay, but it sounds a little *too* much like a dog name.
I kind of like the idea of giving a dog a name that pays homage, not only to modern Japanese culture, but also to how that culture has affected North Americans. For instance, I might name a dog Ichiban or something because the rise in popularity of ramen noodles in Canada draws parallels to the rising number of Nihon Ken in Canada. Anime is another one. Or Hello Kitty or something else that's Japanese in origin and has made it's way into American pop culture.
But, you know, traditional Japanese names are good, too, if I have a Japanese person to reassure me that it doesn't sound retarded.
Come to think of it, Rakka's name might sound retarded because I don't even know if it's Japanese or not. Rakka is from the anime Haibane Renmei and in that show, they say the name means "Falling", but I'm not even sure if that's real Japanese or something the creators of the show made up, because it seems like there is somewhat of a fictional language going on, which I think may be loosely based on Japanese, but I don't know how loosely.
On a side note, my username, Hondru, was something Noah made up out of thin air to be the name of the protagonist in a novel I'm working on and it turns out it's a Japanese surname. I didn't even know that! So that might make me look stupid, too, but I've got this whole novel going and I don't want to change it now.
I know a dog named Douglas. He's a Shar-Pei and I think the name totally suits him. I have a dog name list but it's a secret! I'll share that a couple are famous Yokozuna.
Not dogs, but I'll share my pet names and the "meaning" behind them: Jet: He's all black, so after the precious stone. Also after the band. Ludo: Jet's brother, also named after the band. Which is apparently named after the monster from the movie Labyrinth. Chorizo: Named after the sausage. I just thought it was cute. Kielbasa: Also sausage, to go with Chorizo. Watson: Named after the famous behaviorist and James Watson, who elucidated the structure of DNA. Blooper: I intended to name him Crick to go with Watson, but it didn't really suit him. I picked Blooper like the little squid things in Mario. It also suits him because he's a hairless rat.
Tiramisu: My boyfriend named him. He's a lynx point siamese and he decided he looked like the dessert.
My past dogs: Jake: Because my dad thought it was a good name. I wanted to name him Blaze. Sadie: Mom decided on that one. Current dogs: Juneau: We went to Alaska on a cruise. Sasha: Little sis wouldn't let us name her anything else. Conker: Video-game character. The video-game freak boyfriend named him.
Now that I look back, I haven't named a single one of my dogs even though Jake and Conker were mine, nobody else's. That's somewhat annoying...
Ife's name origin is from the Tenerife one of the Canary Island. We were on holiday there many years ago and joined one tourist trip to Teide. And there the guide told about the meaning of the Island's name Tenerife. Ife in it means white snow. Teide is the volcano in the island and its peak is snow-encrusted so the aboriginals, the Guanches, started to call the island place where is snow-encrusted volcano. Or something like that, I don't remember the whole story behind the name Tenerife. But the meaning of Ife stayed in my mind and I decided that my next dog's name will be Ife. And it also means love in ancient Arabic.
And my next dog will be male so I'm calling her Nuuk. Nuuk means good hope.
My daughter and I have been going crazy thinking of names for our new pup which we will get in about a month.I would like to steal the name" bullet"yiasthoj But my daughter is insisting on names like princess.I think we will wait and let the kai pup name herself.
Definitely Kaiyak, you can go right ahead and use any of these names. That's why I put them here. "Bullet" is one of my favorite! I can imagine sending my dog "Bullet" to catch a prey. "Princess" I think it's a really sweet name for a girl pup. But like you said...I usually let my dog act out a name for him/her self. My Jagdterrier that I have right now...his name is "Joker". He has a mind of his own and he is constantly figuring different ways to get around me. He thinks I'm a total joke to him. That's how he got his name "Joker".
Reilly just sounded good to me when we got her. I call her Rei. Seiji has a japanese name because hes got NK in his mix. we mostly call him Sage, so I dont suppose ethnicity ended up being relevant. Loki turned out to be not much of a trickster, more of a playful fat cat. Shes a great cat though- she fetches and hangs with Sage- my most doglike cat and my most catlike dog. Finn was a muscular cat in his heyday. and Indomitable, always getting back up after older Loki would kick his butt as a kitten. The real Finn MacCumhail was known for wisdom, too but our Finn is not the sharpest tool in the shed.
for puppy names, here on out (there will be no more cats when these go), I look for names with different vowels than Rei (I) and Sage (A)- like Ee, O and U (oo) something I will be happy to say a lot, not a lot of syllables. I tend to shorten them down anyway. I like "Haru," a lot, but she's using it. Harooo!
My husband wants to be "allowed" to name the Next Dog, but I wish I liked the names he thinks of better, since I am In Charge of Dogs over here. he makes them too unweildly, and complicated with obscure meanings and references to hockey, books, games or movies and out of kindness to the pets I am forced to veto many of his proposals. or maybe he just likes to tease me...
I normally use Japanese anime characters to inspire the name for my NK dogs. However, when I had rottweilers, ironically they all initiall started with B.
Rotties: Buster Bruno Shamika (Mika rescue) Sacchi
Other alternatives I was going round and round before we got to Kurenai was "Mariko" (little round one), Megumi (common female japanese name), Midori (green), Kagome, Kagehime, (we got stuck on shadow/black because we knew we were getting a dark sesame Shikoku).
i had a thing about naming my pets after gods and goddess, so my american grl was venus, our JA boy was mars. then i switched to an greek goddess name for our newest edition she is called athena, the plan had been to call her luna but i decided i want my first home bred girl to be called luna, that maybe many years from now but its one that i'll not use til then. our cat was going to be eros infact he was for all of 2 days but it just wasn't suiting him and he became george. i have no clue where george came from but i love it.
I always love to name after anime & video games. However, my friend named Mika lol :P It's also easy to pronounce so I went with it.
As for future pups, I have no idea what I'm going to name any of them, my boyfriend loves traditional Japanese names, so we'll see what happens when we get our next pup. :]
My wife has named all our pets... she generally goes with Ghibli names.
Baron (Kishu) - The Cat Returns Haru (Kai) - The Cat Returns Howl (Persian) - Howl's Moving Castle Muta (cat) - The Cat Returns Puki (cat) - dunno where that came from Momo (Kishu) - she was already named that Sophie (JRT) - Howl's Moving Castle Rome (Shikoku) - in-law's named him that for some reason
From here on out I'll be naming all my dogs Japanese names.
I wanted to name Baron Hakuro (white wolf), but a couple friends have already named their Kishu that.
I bet we'll have some Ghibli names in the future. As soon as my kids are old enough to start insisting on names. They're obsessed with Ghibli! Right now the only thing they ever watch is Ponyo. In fact, Ponyo is what made them start wanting ramen noodles all the time, because that's what Ponyo and Sosuke eat.
I named my Shiba "Kiyomi". I read somewhere it meant pure beauty or beautifully pristine. I'm not sure if it really means that, but my husband and I liked it.
Lobo - German Shepard Tiger - Husky (I think, never knew for sure, he was a rescue) Bear - Bordie Collie/Lab mix (rescue) Sammy - German Shepard/Lab mix (another rescue already named, who broke the streak of animal names)
Kuki - One of my boys was about 2 years old when he named his favorite stuffed dog, Cookie. When he was about 4 he corrected us and said it's not Cookie, it's KOOKY. We came across a Japanese name Kuki and thought it was close to Kooky. Kuki Shūzō was a Japanese philospher who converted to catholicism as Franciscus Assisiensis Kuki Shūzō. Since we are catholic, we knew St. Francis of Assisi was known to love animals.
Wraith - Dutchie / It was between Koenig & Wraith...he responded to Wraith, so that's what we went with. Wraith's registered name is "Vrijheid's Grigori" I allowed the breeder to chooe, since I don't really care too much about the paper names, I thought it would mean more for the breeder.
Fate - We went through a LOT of names...due to some God-Awful things going on in our life when Fate came in...The name, Fate, ended up being the sort of "irony" of it. He was such a mellow / neutral pup too, it kind of suited him. Fate's registered name is "Akashima's Kochi Ken Hiroshi" which we also let Katja choose.
I can never decide on names easily, both of my boys went 1-2 weeks before we picked one lol It also didn't help that my family [ arabs ] & hubby's family [ chinese ] needed to be able to pronounce them if we ever left the boys with them. Hence the middle-ground...english names lol
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As far as the other animals go...it's been: Cockatiels: - Yuki [ Gravitation Anime ] - LuLu [ Final Fantasy X ] - Sephiroth [ Final Fantasy VII ] - Cloud [ Final Fantasy VII ] - [ Vincent ] Valentine [ Final Fantasy VII ] - Kadaj [ FFVII: Advent Children ] - Mesa [ a combination of my sister's name & my name...my dad named him. ] - Dahlia [ after the band X-Japan's song ] - Gackt / Gakuto [ J-Rock singer ]
Other Birds: - Yin - Yang - Suzaku [ legendary phoenix ] - Seiryuu [ legendary dragon ]
Snake: Tiamat...hubby named him after the legendary creature. Iguana: Shinra...after the corporation in Final Fantasy VII [ see a theme yet? lol ] Cat: Halo...kind of obvious.
We also have two Blue Tongued Skinks, Law & Order. [ after the TV Crime Drama ]
The betta fish in the past got named after j-rock artists [ Totchi, Mana, etc. ] & one after Sinbad [ the sailor, not the comedian ]
No idea what's in store for the future...I still have quite a few snakes that need names lol ~
Hey Osy, has Cloud tried to go after Sephiroth yet, or vice-versa? lol sorry, couldn't help myself...
My first cockatiel was named Pikachu. He was a lutino colored one: yellow with red cheeks and a little bit of gray on him...*sign* I miss my cockatiels...
LOL. Actually, Cloud was the first tiel, so waaaay before Sephiroth's time Sephiroth, Valentine, Yuki, & Lulu are the only tiels left and are all, pretty much, old lol. Then we have a white-bellied caique named Chimaera. [ due to the patchwork colours ] ~
Comments
For future dogs, I'd probably just name them cute "dog" names, like Sharik(means round in russian). A lot of the names I like are either armenian or russian, most likely because that's just what I've grown up hearing all the time. I'm also a fan of anime/videogame names too.
Taro: sun wolf
Riki: strength
Hana: flower
Yuki: snow
Koyuki: small snow
Next dog names in line.
Hakuro: white wolf
Sakura: cherry blossom
Fuji: mount fuji
Yamato: WW2 battle ship.
So, now I'm thinking of using Nintendo names, because they're recognized and used by North Americans, but Nintendo is Japanese, so it works for a Japanese-Canadian dog. The name I've been thinking of lately is Koopa or King Koopa. Koopas being the turtles from Mario Bros and King Koopa being their leader (duh) who is usually known as Bowser. Bowser's okay, but it sounds a little *too* much like a dog name.
I kind of like the idea of giving a dog a name that pays homage, not only to modern Japanese culture, but also to how that culture has affected North Americans. For instance, I might name a dog Ichiban or something because the rise in popularity of ramen noodles in Canada draws parallels to the rising number of Nihon Ken in Canada. Anime is another one. Or Hello Kitty or something else that's Japanese in origin and has made it's way into American pop culture.
But, you know, traditional Japanese names are good, too, if I have a Japanese person to reassure me that it doesn't sound retarded.
Come to think of it, Rakka's name might sound retarded because I don't even know if it's Japanese or not. Rakka is from the anime Haibane Renmei and in that show, they say the name means "Falling", but I'm not even sure if that's real Japanese or something the creators of the show made up, because it seems like there is somewhat of a fictional language going on, which I think may be loosely based on Japanese, but I don't know how loosely.
On a side note, my username, Hondru, was something Noah made up out of thin air to be the name of the protagonist in a novel I'm working on and it turns out it's a Japanese surname. I didn't even know that! So that might make me look stupid, too, but I've got this whole novel going and I don't want to change it now.
Not dogs, but I'll share my pet names and the "meaning" behind them:
Jet: He's all black, so after the precious stone. Also after the band.
Ludo: Jet's brother, also named after the band. Which is apparently named after the monster from the movie Labyrinth.
Chorizo: Named after the sausage. I just thought it was cute.
Kielbasa: Also sausage, to go with Chorizo.
Watson: Named after the famous behaviorist and James Watson, who elucidated the structure of DNA.
Blooper: I intended to name him Crick to go with Watson, but it didn't really suit him. I picked Blooper like the little squid things in Mario. It also suits him because he's a hairless rat.
Tiramisu: My boyfriend named him. He's a lynx point siamese and he decided he looked like the dessert.
Jake: Because my dad thought it was a good name. I wanted to name him Blaze.
Sadie: Mom decided on that one.
Current dogs:
Juneau: We went to Alaska on a cruise.
Sasha: Little sis wouldn't let us name her anything else.
Conker: Video-game character. The video-game freak boyfriend named him.
Now that I look back, I haven't named a single one of my dogs even though Jake and Conker were mine, nobody else's. That's somewhat annoying...
And my next dog will be male so I'm calling her Nuuk. Nuuk means good hope.
For a white dog...
Iceberg
Glacier
Blizzard
Storm
Artic
Sub-Zero
Frostbite
Snow Flake
any color dog...(some names for my future hunting dogs)
Beast
Bullet
Bandit
Bold
Bazooka
Braker
Buster
Glock
Wisky
Murder
Sniper
Serial Killer
Rocket
Danger
Fatality
Combo
Joker
Lazer
names which I thought was good for female dogs...
Glamorous
Glory
Gorgeous
Charm
Precious
Guardian
Angel
Cherious
Princess
Beauty
@shishiinu could you translate these into Japanese for us... lol...j/k :P , you could if you want to.
Seiji has a japanese name because hes got NK in his mix. we mostly call him Sage, so I dont suppose ethnicity ended up being relevant.
Loki turned out to be not much of a trickster, more of a playful fat cat. Shes a great cat though- she fetches and hangs with Sage- my most doglike cat and my most catlike dog.
Finn was a muscular cat in his heyday. and Indomitable, always getting back up after older Loki would kick his butt as a kitten. The real Finn MacCumhail was known for wisdom, too but our Finn is not the sharpest tool in the shed.
for puppy names, here on out (there will be no more cats when these go), I look for names with different vowels than Rei (I) and Sage (A)- like Ee, O and U (oo) something I will be happy to say a lot, not a lot of syllables. I tend to shorten them down anyway. I like "Haru," a lot, but she's using it.
My husband wants to be "allowed" to name the Next Dog, but I wish I liked the names he thinks of better, since I am In Charge of Dogs over here. he makes them too unweildly, and complicated with obscure meanings and references to hockey, books, games or movies and out of kindness to the pets I am forced to veto many of his proposals.
Rotties:
Buster
Bruno
Shamika (Mika rescue)
Sacchi
NK:
Ichi(bi) - Shukakku from Naruto or Ichigo from Bleach
Kurenai - anime character from Naruto (http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Kurenai)
Other alternatives I was going round and round before we got to Kurenai was "Mariko" (little round one), Megumi (common female japanese name), Midori (green), Kagome, Kagehime, (we got stuck on shadow/black because we knew we were getting a dark sesame Shikoku).
Jesse
As for future pups, I have no idea what I'm going to name any of them, my boyfriend loves traditional Japanese names, so we'll see what happens when we get our next pup. :]
Baron (Kishu) - The Cat Returns
Haru (Kai) - The Cat Returns
Howl (Persian) - Howl's Moving Castle
Muta (cat) - The Cat Returns
Puki (cat) - dunno where that came from
Momo (Kishu) - she was already named that
Sophie (JRT) - Howl's Moving Castle
Rome (Shikoku) - in-law's named him that for some reason
From here on out I'll be naming all my dogs Japanese names.
I wanted to name Baron Hakuro (white wolf), but a couple friends have already named their Kishu that.
Some male names I like:
Kazuma
Onimaru
Gakuho
Female names:
Tsubaki
Anri
Mikazuki
I'm not sure if it really means that, but my husband and I liked it.
Tiger - Husky (I think, never knew for sure, he was a rescue)
Bear - Bordie Collie/Lab mix (rescue)
Sammy - German Shepard/Lab mix (another rescue already named, who broke the streak of animal names)
Kuki - One of my boys was about 2 years old when he named his favorite stuffed dog, Cookie.
When he was about 4 he corrected us and said it's not Cookie, it's KOOKY.
We came across a Japanese name Kuki and thought it was close to Kooky.
Kuki Shūzō was a Japanese philospher who converted to catholicism as Franciscus Assisiensis Kuki Shūzō.
Since we are catholic, we knew St. Francis of Assisi was known to love animals.
Wraith - Dutchie / It was between Koenig & Wraith...he responded to Wraith, so that's what we went with. Wraith's registered name is "Vrijheid's Grigori" I allowed the breeder to chooe, since I don't really care too much about the paper names, I thought it would mean more for the breeder.
Fate - We went through a LOT of names...due to some God-Awful things going on in our life when Fate came in...The name, Fate, ended up being the sort of "irony" of it. He was such a mellow / neutral pup too, it kind of suited him. Fate's registered name is "Akashima's Kochi Ken Hiroshi" which we also let Katja choose.
I can never decide on names easily, both of my boys went 1-2 weeks before we picked one lol It also didn't help that my family [ arabs ] & hubby's family [ chinese ] needed to be able to pronounce them if we ever left the boys with them. Hence the middle-ground...english names lol
---
As far as the other animals go...it's been:
Cockatiels:
- Yuki [ Gravitation Anime ]
- LuLu [ Final Fantasy X ]
- Sephiroth [ Final Fantasy VII ]
- Cloud [ Final Fantasy VII ]
- [ Vincent ] Valentine [ Final Fantasy VII ]
- Kadaj [ FFVII: Advent Children ]
- Mesa [ a combination of my sister's name & my name...my dad named him. ]
- Dahlia [ after the band X-Japan's song ]
- Gackt / Gakuto [ J-Rock singer ]
Other Birds:
- Yin
- Yang
- Suzaku [ legendary phoenix ]
- Seiryuu [ legendary dragon ]
Snake: Tiamat...hubby named him after the legendary creature.
Iguana: Shinra...after the corporation in Final Fantasy VII [ see a theme yet? lol ]
Cat: Halo...kind of obvious.
We also have two Blue Tongued Skinks, Law & Order. [ after the TV Crime Drama ]
The betta fish in the past got named after j-rock artists [ Totchi, Mana, etc. ] & one after Sinbad [ the sailor, not the comedian ]
No idea what's in store for the future...I still have quite a few snakes that need names lol ~
My first cockatiel was named Pikachu. He was a lutino colored one: yellow with red cheeks and a little bit of gray on him...*sign* I miss my cockatiels...