The Naming of Cats

[shewhomust]

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single writer of no fortune whatsoever must be in want of a cat. Which is how it came about that Chaz, as he explains in his blog, has cut short his period of mourning and entered the service of a cat whose only fault is that, having been found on Barry Street, he has been named Barry. There are worse names, but there are probably better ones, too, names that will not provoke references to Chaz'n'Baz, so yesterday an e-mail was circulated, announcing Barry's arrival (strictly on a probationary basis) and asking for suggestions.

fjm was in first, with the elegant solution "Barishnikov!"

Gail-Nina, whose theory it is that all cats are really named Beanbag or Git, made an exception, and offered :
Artichoke
Spam
Young Hastings
Bertoldo
Bramble
Cat-Face
Loki
Pyewacket
Ortolan
Specimen
Powers and Dominions
Jerome
The Penguin
and Botticelli, of which my favourite is Ortolan.

Someone who shall be nameless faked up Barry's e-mail to complain:

I'm hurt. Admittedly, Barry wouldn't have been my first choice of name, but I've grown used to it, and it drives me almost as wild as catnip when people roll their rrrrrrs (you'll need to practise). In Scots dialect, 'barry' means 'splendid' so you'll soon find that I'm aptly named. I know you don't mean to hurt my felines - feelings - and I'm sure you'd choose a suitable literary alternative, but Barry Brenchley has a certain post-modern ring to it, n'est-ce pas?

The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter, it isn't just one of your holiday games; (there's an edition of Old Possum with Edward Gorey illustrations; this is both utterly wonderful and completely wrong, because, of course, Nicolas Bentley drew the pictures). Given this embarrassment of riches, it's just as well that a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES. These are currently Bartholomew Bastable Basildon-Bond, though Chaz threatens to go all Chinese, and just call him Number One Son until he's at least two years old...

ETA: Val McDermid writes from Australia to point out that Barry Brenchley sounds like a damn fine name for a (web)surfer. Plus, it has a crime connection - the Barrys are the awards given on behalf of the readers of Deadly Pleasures magazine. It may not be exotic, she concludes, but it does have a certain ring to it.

Comments

[helenraven.livejournal.com]

I like "Young Hastings" and may nab that for my cat (when it deigns to find me).

[janni.livejournal.com]

We tried to give our young cat a respectable name, perhaps from a Greek or Hittite king, but none of those lovely names would stick to him. The only name that did stick was Mogget, even though he looks nothing like the (sort of) demon-cat for which he is named. He's been trying to live up to the name in other ways, instead, though.

As for the old cat ... the danger of having an old cat is that you can wind up spend years with a cat named for one of your childhood fanfic characters. Though I like to think maybe Tia is just short for Tiamat, and I just didn't realize it yet in my early 20s ...

[sovay]

(there's an edition of Old Possum with Edward Gorey illustrations; this is both utterly wonderful and completely wrong, because, of course, Nicholas Bentley drew the pictures)

I've only ever seen the Edward Gorey edition: it was my first encounter with his work. (And Eliot's, too. For years, I thought of T.S. Eliot as the man who'd written the humorous book about cats and Edward Gorey as the man who'd done the cute illustrations. I bet these descriptions left a lot of people confused.) Could you direct me to Nicolas Bentley's?

a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES. These are currently Bartholomew Bastable Basildon-Bond, though Chaz threatens to go all Chinese, and just call him Number One Son until he's at least two years old...

*snerk*

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Could you direct me to Nicolas Bentley's?

I wish I could; if I'd been able to find a decent link last night, I might have been saved from misspelling his name. As it is, the best I could find was this cover image (http://catymology.blogspot.com/2006/01/great-feline-authors-old-possums-book.html). (There is a current Faber edition (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0571105580/outremer-20), too).

[signy1.livejournal.com]

Really, it's not as though the cat will go so far as to acknowledge whatever name he's eventually given; my experience of cats is that they like ignoring any and all salutations...

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Hello, signy1!

[sekhmets-song.livejournal.com]

Stencil and I have tried top give our cats "respectable" names, mostly Irish and Russian writers. It doesn't quite work out, though.
Vladimir (Mayakovski) turned out to be the runt of his litter and much too small for such a big name. He has thus been known as Boober for the last 14 years. Occasionally, he is Mr. Tubbs, referring to his one-time girth (he is an elder kitty, now, and it thus fairly slender these days) and his love of all things bathtub related.
Sam (Beckett) is, of course, Sammy most often, but he is also The Samster, Samicus, Sam-sam and another dozen variations on the theme. As he is now a bit senile (working on his 19th year, he is quite sound in body, but mentally, well, he never was the sharpest knife in the drawer; time has not helped the situation), he is often called Ding-bat and Dim Bulb.
Lev (Davidovich Brontstein) has more names than I can count. You'd think he could keep such a nice, neat name such as Lev without the need for a long list of nicknames. Isn't the case, of course, but you would think that. Leviticus and Levin Beauty (a beauty supply chain) are probably the names he gets called most (well, no, that would be "Shut-the-f***-up-you-stupid-cat," but won't count that as an official name in polite company).
Oscar (Wilde) is the only one without a million nicknames. I don't know why.
Mayuko, most recent addition, was a name that broke with our literary tradition. Mayuko was named after the Japanese actress Mayuko Tanaka....And then we found out Mayuko was a boy (in our defense, he is a pixie-bob and they reach sexual maturity much later than the average cat); now he is know mostly at Guppy.
The naming of cats is a difficult business, indeed.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

That's a great illustration of how naming happens organically, isn't it?

And who is that in your icon?