Why do you think most people started using human names for their pets?

Hello ! yes , pet color is going famous day by day !

Since humans are having fewer children, our pets have taken the place of children. Our last cat was "Sleepy". The one before that was "Johnny Cat", after a brand of cat litter.

My rabbit when I was a teenager was called Sally. My mum always named her pets after their description like Grey Legs, Mini, Tiger and Fluffy. My two dogs don't have human names. They are called Secret Party Circle and Magic Mayflower. I shorten their names to Secret and Magic. I got them in 2004 and 2006. Now people name their pets human names like Max, Dave, Maisie or Charlie. They go for sweet and innocent sorts of names I believe. They are sometimes serious names that they would have called their children.

Hi ! We call our pets with a human name because they are already so attached to us , that even some of our pets are treated like human being . They are part of the family ,sometimes they complete a family , without any pets at home seems home is boring but with them being around seems house have some glows.

Yeah,I also notice that. We have a cat in our boarding house and my friend originated its name from her past lover. The cat is so sweet and she said that cat will remind her of her past lover name "Kiko".I guess people started using human names for their pets because it will be a reminder for them as one important person in their lives.

I think it is most likely due to the growing idea to make pets a bigger part of their lives and be more connected. Especially as the general population ages and older folks are substituting their "empty nests" with their furry friends.

I think that there has always been a proportion of pets (and working animals) with 'human' names. There are traditional names for dogs, cats, horses, cows, goats and many other 'pet' animals. Usually these names are ones that the animals can recognise easily. Dogs' names tend to be one or two syllables with easily distinguishable vowels because one often needs to summon a particular dog by name. They often begin and end with a consonant (if they are single syllables) or (in the case of two syllables or when used affectionately) add a 'y' or 'ie'. Only one of the cats I have owned had a 'human' name - Emily - and that was because she was inherited. The other two are 'Chips' and 'Dusty' (named for their fur colour). Some specifially 'cat' names like 'Mephistopheles', 'Greymalkin', 'Pyewacket' and 'Pigwidgeon', perhaps, reflect their somewhat mysterious nature, and their imagined association with witches. There's a list of good cat names here: http://www.greatcatnames.com/ and, of course, T.S.Eliot wrote at length on the naming of cats in "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats", which is always a delight: http://www.moggies.co.uk/html/oldpssm.html My dog was called 'Taff' (again, inherited) which is the Welsh short form of Dafydd (David) and is a common name for Welsh collies. There are many traditional names for dogs which are not 'human' names and 'Rover' and 'Spot' are perhaps the only ones which people remember now as 'dog' names. The old song "D'ye ken John Peel" lists 'Ruby', 'Ranter', 'Ringwood', 'Bellman', 'True' and 'Royal' as some of the names of his hounds. Goats are unusual in that both sexes have a generic name which is a 'human' name - Billy and Nanny (familiar versions of William and Ann, respectively). Cows are very often given 'human' names such as 'Daisy', 'Mary', 'Dolly' and other girls names and a very common old name for a horse was 'Dobbin', which is an old English personal name. I think that animals which have enjoyed pet status (rather than working status) have always tended to have 'human' names. It is less common now to keep dogs and cats as working animals and they are much more often companions, so I think that the increase in 'human' names reflects their change in status from working partners to cherished companions.

I don't know. Maybe it's for the same reason some people name their kids after fruits, trees, states, or even countries! LOL I tend to go the non-human name route myself. However, I did have a dog named Penny before. It certainly wasn't because girls were named that though! LOL It was because her color reminded me of a penny. It suited her perfectly, so my husband and I went with that. Happy mylotting!

Hi tiny, Good question. My husband and I have cats. Some of them have the typical pet names and others have human names. We mixed it up a bit. My thought on that is maybe we're naming our pets with human names because either they can be so much like children at times or maybe it is because so often, people let us down, so we look to our pets to make up for or replace human relationships.

hi tinym8I have no idea as most of the time I also used human names like Pat but myhcat was totally black so she got Midnight and that dog we got as a puppy from a swap meet so he was Swap.I think a lot of people name their pets for people that they know or someone in the family. I am just guessing.

People seem more attached to their pets now than before. They treat them like part of the family. They even get them clothes and things that humans would wear. I think that is why more and more people are naming pets human names.

Where else do you think they would find names for their pets? They used what they knew. Cheers.

yes it is for everywhere and people like to give a human name to their pets as comparison to previous time, I also had a dog and his name was on human name because we cosidered him as part of our family, I think the reason behind that people love to give their pets a human name is that because they considered their pets as a family and it is easy to pronounce a human name in comparison of other names and pets understand their name easily..

I named my little Yorkie Homer - after this famous Greek poet. I did this because it's funny: such a small dog has such a big name. I find it cute:) But I don't mind regular dog names, they're nice too.

I have never used a human name for my pets.

I have a mixture of names here. Duke, Bunny, Jill and Sadie are the dogs. The 2 house cats are Ghost and Pretty.

My dogs' names were Rascal and Pip. I named Rascal because that's what he was. Pip already had a name. It fit her. It depends on the personality of the animal. At least for me.