The naming of cats

A cat by any other name

A lady at work’s cat went missing for a couple of days recently. Luckily the cat turned up safe and sound just when my colleague was getting to the stage of thinking that she needed to put up some notices around the neighbourhood. But she was faced with a dilemma: what to put as the cat’s name? Should she use her real name, Jet, by which she is never known and therefore unlikely to respond to – or one of Jet’s usual monikers like Meow Meow or Girl Kitty and risk the neighbours thinking that she had gone a bit barmy?

This got me thinking about why a cat can never stick with the first name it is given, no matter how regal, sleek or sophisticated it sounds or how long you spent thinking it up. I named a cat Minerva once – the Roman goddess of wisdom, a name that would perfectly encapsulate her majesty and supreme haughtiness. Did anyone ever actually call her Minerva? Nope, for most of her life she was known as Mini Moo. It’s no wonder that TS Elliot said that the naming of cats was a difficult thing. He concluded that a cat should have no fewer than three distinctive names.

A cat of many names

As for our two, Stanley was originally named after Stanley Yelnats in Holes by Louis Sachar (brilliant book) and because he just looks like a Stanley, while Cookie came with her name, and although it sounded like she had been given it by a small child we stuck with it in case she had got used to it in the four or five weeks that she’d been at Wood Green Animals Charity. And it suits her because she’s so sweet.

Of course, they have nicknames too but they tend to be derived from their real names, so as not to confuse the poor things. Whether or not they choose to respond is another matter entirely, but Stanley’s ears will twitch at anything beginning with Stan, be it Stanislas, Stanners, Stanage, Stanpurr or Stanmore, while Cookie will open her eyes, and possibly even tilt her head, for Little Coo, Kooky, Kookapetal, Cookson or Cooklet.

The sweetest puss ever?

All of which brings me to Stanley’s Great Uncle Clarp. He began life as Clarence, was known briefly about town as first, Clary Climber and then, Clary Clue, before settling on the name of Clarpie. “Where’s the ‘p’ in Clarence?” tiresome pedants would ask, and not be satisfied by the answer: “Who care’s? Where’s the ‘B’ in William?” Then one day it became clear to me that only the ‘Clar’ part was short for Clarence while the ‘pie’ ending referred to his black and white coat, as in ‘magpie’ or ‘piebald’ pony.

It was during Clarpie’s senior years that I read The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, in which the count is addressed by the title ‘Monsieur Le Comte’. After reading this term of address several thousand times (it’s a really long book) and seeing a lot of the Count in Clarpie, what with his air of mystery, multi talents and determination to carry out his plans to the bitter end, it was only natural that he became known thereafter as Monsieur Le Clarp.

I never thought I’d ever know a cat like Clarpie again until the day we brought Stanley home. Apart from the lack of white patches, Stanley is the spitting image, and has proved to have many of the same traits and distinctions as his predecessor: a very loud meow, a propensity to dingleberries and daftness, a love of mountaineering, the upside down superpuss pose, and a strong need to get soaked in the rain. And so we now refer to Clarpie as Stanley’s Great Uncle Clarp, proving that cats go on acquiring daft new names long after they have gone and left us.

Does anyone else find that they can’t help making up silly nicknames for their cats? Does the same thing happen with dogs?