What's in a Name?

[Carmindy]

I don't know about anyone else, but for me taming a new pet is only half the excitement. The other comes from naming my new beastie. Whether the name is creative, symbolic, or silly, I love this ability to personalize our pets. Sometimes it takes me ages to find the perfect one. My Loque ran around as "Spirit Beast" for months before I finally settled on Khartoum. Others only take seconds, like Peaches the devilsaur. If I can't find a name I'm satisfied with, I can't keep the pet.

So is anyone else as crazy about pet titles? Are your pets named after something special? Or someone special? Is there one that just makes you laugh? Feel free to share your favorite pet/name combos and say why they are perfect for you!

Personally, I am especially fond of Magellan, my Sambas; and Chipotle, my flaming boar.

[Bonita]

My Sian-Rotam (Rayne) is named after my kitty.
My Terrorpene (Tiger) is named after my turtle. I named her when I was like 10 so idr why I named her Tiger lol.
Those are pretty much my only 2 pets whos names mean anything. The rest were just random names that sometimes took a week for me to come up with.

[GormanGhaste]

I have a geology theme right now, and some of my favorite pet names include:
Aquamarine, my ghostcrawler
Chalk, my seagull
Tepui, my tallstrider (South American rock formation in the movie Up)

[Nubhorns]

Braxley got her name when I was playing Pokemon and fought a trainer named Braxley. :B /nerd

My Humar, Crow, got his name from growing up watching MST3K. /bigger nerd

My Vargul Plaguehound got his name(Vince!) from Vince Offer. Uh. Shamwow. Slapchop. /biggest nerd?

A lot of my pets wind up being named by my best friend, who mains a warrior most of the time and doesn't get to tame much herself. Peaches the warp stalker, Kiwi the Krush, Rice the hyena were all named by her, and they all make me hungry. :P

[lilaughingwolf]

Depends on my hunter. I have a hunter named Demonikk and all her pets are themed that way, Faithless (white bear) Leigon (Ravanger) Demon (worg) and so on. Some of my pets I kept close to thier names like Shadowtoez (Shadowclaw) Ash (Ashtail) Duskie (Duskstalker) and some I kept their names cause I liked them (Arcturis = http://www.ask.com/wiki/Arcturus) my spirit bear. But others like Logue I have named "Illusion" cause thats what it felt like seeing him and tameing him after almost a year of looking for him, or "FluffyYummz" my devilsaurs (come on if something named FluffyYummz killed you wouldnt you have a "Doh!!!" moment?). I am very careful with names I do pick and have renamed pets (thankfully have inscript on my druid) a few times. I also carefully map out what I do and dont want to tame and check and re-check Petopia all the time. I have made hours of running to strange places to tame a pet Im obssessed with (like the black bears with the brown eye mask, I have one named TankAroo) or rallying my thankfully forgiveing and wonderful guild mates to join me in a raid run to tame a new pet..lol. They have dubbed me the OCD pet collector.

[Griffley]

"SUPERMACHOLO", my blue turtle, got his name because it seemed to fit his extraordinary awesomeness.
"Rockstar" My Gondria, random name that works for me
"GUYSORGRIMAR" <- I came home kind-of drunk-ish from going out one night, and i named my purple outland chimaera that way because I wanted us (me and spontaniously made friends) to go attack orgrimmar. It was when I woke up next morning that I actually realised what i had done, but the name seems perfect in its outrageousness.
"Po" my Seagull. - He is awesome.
ThisIsSparta - my Rhino for horn tossing, it was that name or "Leonidas" (the guy that actually does the kick in 300) or "Rhionidas"~ which would have been a cool name, but would have gotten too farfetched maybe.

and Griffpig, my flaming boar of justice.

[TygerDarkstorm]

For me it depends on the hunter. My undead hunter, Yzma, has a theme of dead and gothic pets that are all named after Disney characters.

My main hunter, Vitani, tends to name her pets after any fictional character or names that I come up with that just really click for the pet (like Chewy my jormungar and Twinkie my Sambas).

My blood elf hunter, Rosaliah, is a crass, hard shelled bounty hunter whose pets all have short, harsh sounding names (Thrash the cobra, for example).

My goblin hunter, Fiona, will be taming cutesy pets that will try to have cutesy names (Appletini the turtle).

Most of my other hunters don't really have naming themes and just name the pet whatever seems to suit them best. Although I do allow my troll hunter to be the one who gives her pets silly sounding names (Reptar, her KK, Cake her crab, etc).

[Griffley]

Appletini the turtle is an awesome name like that Tyger.
:O dear lord

[TygerDarkstorm]

Her name's been pretty popular when I mention it.

[Araela]

On my main, she has a Star Trek theme for her pets, so I have to find characters that fit the personality of the pet.

My alt, Durgra, has a wolf pack theme going with all composers/musicians as her wolves. Other pets have various names, such as Spork (Grunter).

[Agravaine]

I have a bunch of themes going...

Anime:
Sian-Rotam - Kimba
Oil-Stained Wolf - Susuwatari

Japanese Lore:
Rak'Shiri - Genji
Rotting Agam'ar - Benkei

Mario:
Terrokarantula - Mimi
Terrorpene - Bowser

Dr. Doolittle:
Monstrous Macaw - Polynesia
Aotona - Miranda

X-Files:
Whitetail Fox - Scully
Ashtail - Mulder (Fox Mulder )

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
Sambas - Zaphod
Brown Madexx - Frood
Black Madexx - Agrajag (actually wanted Slartibartfast but it doesn't all fit )

Misc. Book/Movie/TV references:
Shadowclaw - Lungri (was my first pet's name, it's what Shere Khan's mother called him -- "lame one")
Olm - Alatriste
Gezzarak - Stripe (Gremlins)

[Socks]

Each of my pets names consist of 5 letters and 1 special symbol, if I find a name that I really want for that pet but cant shorten it down to fit my naming rule then I either change the name completely or don't bother to keep the pet at all. It really is a fun little game that just makes the long camps and dreaded timers even more fun after that shiny "Ding, grats on the tame" It also helps me find who I can bond with, actually, it works ^-^' /shrug
It all started with my Gondria, named Blink, after a short phrase I made in my head about her.. "And in a blink of the eye.. she's gone.." Just because she's transparent and all that :3
Within these circumstances Ive named;
Blink (Blink) My Gondria
Karma (Karma) my Karoma
Jahkl (Jackle) my Ghostcrawler
Thyme (Time) my Arcturis
Froze (Frozen) my Loque
Voltz (Volts) my Skoll
...
Yeah, you get the idea xD

[Lupis]

My newer hunter, Brakara, has pets named traditional orcish names. :-> Some of them just sound Orcish, others are actual Old Orcish words.
Groma- black boar. She just looked like a Groma, which is a typical name for female orcs.
Drakka- red outlands raptor. It matches the dragon-y look she has, and it's also a orcish name.
Lok'vadnod (Lokvadnod)- White lion. It's a word for a song about a hero's life. (Lok = song)
Goshlok- her riding wolf. xD Gosh means Wolf and Lok means song, so she's Wolfsong.
Brosk- yellow hyena. Just sounded harsh and orcish.

[Tahlian]

For my Tauren hunter, Oakh, I've been going with Hawaiian names and/or words for her newly tamed pets. Save for one new guy, that is.

She has:

Keaka - (Old Cliff Jumper) meaning "the shadow, the essence" a faithful name for a wolf that's always right beside his mistress.
Kahu - (Duskfang) meaning "Guardian." Kahu has always had far less of a malicious aura than this cat has with other hunters, so he gets a less malicious name.
Pueo - (Olm the Wise) - "Pueo" is the Hawaiian name for the brown short-eared owl, who is also seen as a guardian spirit. Seemed perfect for this spectral buddy.
Keoka - (Brown pseudo-Madexx) meaning "the brave one." Keoka was a scorpid I picked up just to try out. No sooner had the tame finished than PetEmote (and the idle animations) had him happily waving his claws in the air and standing up on his little legs like he wasn't scared of anything. Hence Keoka.

And then there's the one oddball:

Groucho - (Zaricotl) this crazy bird just wanted a name as manic as he is, so he insisted on Groucho.

[Lahni]

Valtiel, my hunter's best friend and pet Frostsaber Pride Watcher, is a reference to my favorite video game, Silent Hill 3

I also have a seagull named DEUCES (yes, in all caps). "Deuces" is ghettonese for "Goodbye" or "I'm done with you". DEUCES is capable of unspeakable evil.

Then there's Squiggles, my tamed Mahamba. Poor guy, he went from epic troll deity to a crocolisk forced to answer to "Squiggles". I bet Pogeyan and Tsul'Kalu giggle about him back home in Stranglethorn. He got his name after I saw his walking animation and just thought "lol, squiggles". I'm not sure why.

I named my Sambas Alexander. I still consider him my most beautiful companion, I just think his model is so majestic and awesome and I wanted a name that fit. I chose "Alexander" because it means "defender of man", and it seemed worthy. It also occured afterwards that it could also be a reference to Alex the lion from Madagascar!

[Lukhela]

On my Tauren Hunter I named the most of my pets like the monsters of the Godzilla univers.

Black Devilsaur - Gojira (jap. for Godzilla)
Yellow Moth - Mothra
Blue&Green Ravager - Biollante
Grey Raptor - Minilla
Beige Chimaera - (King) Ghidorah
Color Changing Spike Crab - Ebirah
Color Changing Saber Worg - Shisa
Purple Shale Spider - Kumonga
Terrorpene - Kameba
Blue Dragonhawk - Rodan
Black Warpstalker - Anguirus
White Wesp - Megaguirus
Purple Boss Silithid - Megalon
Two-Headed Ghostly Blue Vulture - Owashi

My other pets got fun names like Dodo for the Pink Tallstrider or indiana names like Tokala for the black fox.

My alt Grimhilde (dwarf Hunter) just tame white Pets and they are all old fashioned named. It all started with the names of the valkyries of the manga "Violinist of Hameln".
So I got for example Ortlinde the white Windserpant or Helmwige the white crab or Waltraute the white bear.

And now I'm working on a human Hunter named after the goddess Freya (my hunter is named Frayja) who tame only cats and they will get all names of the north mythology.

[Bryndell]

Some of my names are characteristics of the pets themselves that I've observed.

My color changing crab is named Indecisive.

Krush is named Patience, due to the patience it took me to camp him.

Gondria is Evasive..because she really was. Always spawning when I was offline!

Skoll is Lucid, and his twin brother, the oil wolf is Lurid.

My Terrorpene is Casey, a la Ninja Turtles.

I tamed Shango and her name is Obvious. Because she was ALWAYS THERE when I lapped.

A purple shale spider was named Impulsive because I tamed her on impulse.

[Mozag]

Lots of themese here too, but my favourites from the bunch include:

Mozag (pets named after metal bands):

- Dismember (red beetle)
- Abominator (red mine spider)
- Morbid (colour-changing runed crab)

Goblin (jewel and money related names):

- Bling (Spiteflayer)
- Moolah (green and yellow parrot)
- Pearl (white fox)
- Coin (Gosh-Haldir)
- Loot (Gondria)

Nelf (flower and plant names):

- Juniper (Olm)
- Ivy (grey tarantula)
- Sweet Pea (Lupos)
- Iris (white tallstrider)
- Snapdragon (Miniwing-parrot)

Worgen (writer names):

- Wordsworth (black worg)
- Coleridge (black owl)
- Flaubert (Zaricotl)
- Montgomery (black bone spider)
- Baudelaire (Ressan the Needler)

Orc (war leader names):

- Artaxias (brown armoured boar)
- Theodoric (Ghamoo-ra)
- Ambiorix (white crocolisk)
- Nikephoros (orange hyena)
- Scipio (black windserpent)
- Antiochus (orange tarantula)

The others don't have enough pets to really make it on this list.

[TygerDarkstorm]

Some of my names are characteristics of the pets themselves that I've observed.

My color changing crab is named Indecisive.

Krush is named Patience, due to the patience it took me to camp him.

Gondria is Evasive..because she really was. Always spawning when I was offline!

Skoll is Lucid, and his twin brother, the oil wolf is Lurid.

My Terrorpene is Casey, a la Ninja Turtles.

I tamed Shango and her name is Obvious. Because she was ALWAYS THERE when I lapped.

A purple shale spider was named Impulsive because I tamed her on impulse.

I should hope Shango's always there, he's a quest mob.

[Gemmuh]

I have Artemis (Loque) and Luna (Gondria). They're named after the two cats on Sailor Moon. xD /nerd, too lol

Anywhoo, I named them that because I used to LOVE Sailor Moon when I was younger.. heck, I still do ^^. Fond memoriesss <3