Pet Names, how did you pick them

[Förster]

I am in a guild with a bunch of hunters that have pets that have no names, because they cannot think of a name to give them, some are trying to hard, others are just like i want it to be the perfect name, so i thought it would be nice to make forum saying how various hunters decided on our pet names.

I name all of my pets after my friends, ie my cat witch is sleek, beautiful and deadly so i named it after my fiancée, i have a pet named after another one of my friends, because my friend called it "sexy", so how do you my fellow hunters decide on the names for you pets

[CrystalKitten]

Mine are named in different way depending on how I feel about the pet.

Zyra and Kinserok are named just off of my messing around with sounds for a cool more serious sounding fantasy name.

Squishy, Sparkles, and Squiggles have more silly names, because... mostly just cause I wanted to. Pydar is similar.. but it's also my way of making sure my spider keeps it's cute image for me.. cause I'm a bit of an arachnophobe. I also say Spider like that when I feel like being silly.

Ardenset and Variscix are based off of real word roots that I felt fit the pets really well. And then Dusk for Aotona is just an outright word that fit her.

[Nubhorns]

Trying hard to make a 'serious' name for one of my pets rarely ends well - I was a recent transfer to a RP server when I named my worg Umbergore, and he's so hammy next to my other pets, who all have 'silly', not very Orc-y names. It just turned out to suit the character more than serious names would.

That said, I rarely name things right away. If I tame something I usually tell my friends, who sometimes suggest names, but for the most part I run around for a few until I find something I like. I named Bastien(Olm) after a particularly funny tank I had, and Hadouken(Skoll) + Shoryuken(Gondria) earned their names from my Street Fighter loving boyfriend, while Kiwi(Krush) and Pickles(Zaricotl) came from my friend being silly with her suggestions. The only pet I've had whose name has come to me right off the bat was Martin, a plain brown owl I picked up on a whim - I'm not sure why I decided on a name that...um, dull, but it clicked immediately and he's one of my favorite pets.

[Macha]

Mine are named after some of my favorite characters from various series. I try to match pets and names to where they mesh, like with the following-

Cats/Cat Spirit Beasts: Any name from the Warriors books.
Toothless the Warpstalker
DanHibiki my ultra manly pink Dragonhawk
Jack the black mining monkey (named after the monkey in PotC, not Jack Sparrow, lol)

I am not without silly names, though-

Boombox the Silithid (named after the Lonely Island song and after my very old boombox, which is HUGE)
Tripod the Squee Spider (named after the Australian comedy trio of the same name)
Fergalicious the Pink Tallstrider

[yozban]

well my native language is Farsi . so I just translate the original name to my own language . for example :

Bear = Khers
Cat = Gorbe
Lion = Shir
Wolf = Gorg
Dog = Sag
Crab = Kharchang
Bird of pray = Paranade
Tiger = Babr
Panther = Palang

well my brother use some other method , if his pet got mustache . he will call them Hitler . . .
if they are black , he call them Obama . . .
if they are cute , he call them Hillary Duff or some other cute singers or actress lol

[yozban]

by the way I name my ban'thalos = jack bauer .
LOL so I wish that he can solo kill all the enemy

[Calixte]

I got my toon's name, Calixte, when I picked it off a name website. It's Greek. Since then, I've started to pick out names for her pets based on various mythological figures as well as inspiring characters from novels, and the occasional silly name.
Old Cliffjumper is Endymion and Deathmaw is Selene, the moon and the object of Endymion's affections according to various Greek myths. My oldest and most beloved pet is Telemachus, my Sian-Rotam.
I have a Kirjava, Pantalaimon and Stelmaria, from Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy.
My lucky bear, Arcturis, is named after my new WoW BFF, Alystair. My Terrorpene is Paradoxy after my boyfriend's retired pally tank. Skoll is Tesla because he's awesome. Finally, Facestomp is my devilsaur, because all I can remember of Un'Goro is having my face stomped by crazy sneaky devilsaurs.

[Starzein]

All my pets have animal names, goat koala Duck Bilbi etc.
I have done this because when i first started my hunter and the start of Cata i saw on my mini map a creature that when i moused over it was called worganpet, i spent hours hunting this mob only to in the end find it was a hunters pet named worganpet and not as i thought an actual new cata creature so now i do the same in hopes i can get someone to see koala or Kangaroo or goanna and think as i did it was some new animal put in game, and maybe give them the same d'oh moment i had......if your on saurfang and you see a dot on your mini map and find its an animal not seen in the game then chances are you have found Starzein ! hehe

[Morven]

Most of mine have random fantasy names; I'm a wannabe fantasy author, so I've gotten quite good at coming up with random names.

Karkin, though, I amused myself by naming him Karkinaroth, which is a city in P.C. Hodgell's Kencyrath books. To go with the theme, I named Skarr Jorin, which is the mind-linked hunting cat of the heroine of that series.

It must be noted that in that series, Jorin tends to get more out of the relationship than Jame, the heroine; he's blind, so he sees through her eyes instead, but only gives her occasional flashes of his senses. He comes in handy a few times, though! And gets her in trouble more often.

[GormanGhaste]

My current pet theme on my main is gems/rocks/minerals/geology.

[Worba]

Often I will start with a very general feeling that I get about the creature - green, heat, night, quiet, water, etc - and then look it up on thesaurus.com, and keep clicking synonym links until I (hopefully) find something I like.

Another place to go is http://www.freedict.com/onldict/lat.html; this is a nice site for translating english words into foreign ones (I particularly like their English <--> Japanese option as it translates to romaji (anglicized spelling) rather than kanji / kana characters).

Otherwise, my own personal guidelines (which I sometimes break) are:

1) When you come up with a name, imagine your character yelling it in the heat of battle - does it make you cringe? Then you might want to throw it back in the oven a bit longer (for one thing, having fewer syllables usually is better unless it's something you REALLY like).

2) Insider names. Unless I think of one with particular significance to me, I stay away from these, because I like my names to be at least somewhat accessible to others.

3) Foreign names. This is a good source of inspiration, however as above when using a foreign theme, I try to stick with names that are at least SOMEWHAT recognizable to the world at large.

4) Conjunctions. Not generally a fan of these, but if all else fails I will occasionally use these as a last resort.

Just my own preference though, obv - YMMV.

Good luck!

[felren]

Sorry if this is a late reply, but while lurking on the Petopia forums I saw this website in someone's banner. http://www.wowpetnames.com/ It will manage to produce a good name eventually. Most of the time in smashes to nouns together and hopes you like the end result. Hope this helped! c:

[Curzon]

I stare at the pet long enough until a name pops into my head.

[Corpsebryde]

In the past the way I named pets was to just look at it and whichever name popped up I used.

With Bryde I decided on a theme: paranormal/undead/dark (I've always wanted an undead hunter and the paranormal has always been a huge part of my family's life). I've had the most fun with this naming process. Her spirit beasts are named after American Indian gods though.

Trying too hard on a name usually results in disappointment, so if I can't figure out a name after a few minutes I dismiss it and come back to it later.

It is rather disappointing though seeing all of these nameless pets running around. Since we are the pet class I always hoped that the people playing would love pets as much as I do and take the time to name them.

[Rasten86]

I am a huge Disturbed fan , so everyone of my 24 pets is named after a Disturbed song.

[Wark]

I'm fond of smashing random sounds together until I get something I like. My first hunter named all pets that way: Kirachi, Shikere, Lirlelnan, etc. The downside to that approach is that the best way to WRITE a sound using the English alphabet may not be the best way to READ it (ex: "Shikere" is pronounced "shee-keh-ray").

My second system was thinking up something the pet could represent-- and I liked to stretch that to use odd ideas-- and then "translate" the English word into Orcish using the list of words/letters/syllables the game uses to translate what you say in-game into gobbledygook for non-Orcish-speaking characters. I worked loosely by syllable, so Devotion (de-vo-tion) became Hakogesh (ha-ko-gesh), Opportunism became Gigulkamuko, Confusion became Aazilkagg, etc. Between tormenting myself with thinking up the perfect base name and picking out an Orcish equivalent that was interesting, it was a bit much effort. I have serious doubts that many people would be interested in doing something so involved.

My third system is somewhere between the first and second. I'm trying for more Tauren-sounding names now, and it's nice if they mean something, but some of them are meant to just sound/look good. For instance, my snake is Yanahe, which doesn't mean anything but sounds Tauren-y. My fat-butt lava tarantula is Ishnate, which is the syllables the game picks out for "fat" (ish) and "lava" (nate) if you say something in Taurahe and a non-Tauren sees it.

[Greylight]

On Greylight, my Worgen, all of his cats have Greek names, the children of Nyx. He also has a small wolf pack, all named for a pack of wolves that Grey's name came from in the Mithgar book series by Dennis L Mckiernan. My other pets I just came up with one's that I liked.

On Wawgwan, my Troll, all of his pets so far are named for different types of Caribbean music, in fitting with the accent and attitude. Even his name is a variation spelling on a jamaican slang term.

[Tahlian]

Tahl's pets have names from several different sources. "Daishar" and "Tsorovan" come from the Old Tongue from Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series. His wolf, Valiant, earned his name by defending Tahlian from the Vilebranch trolls that took issue with a hunter taking one of their wolves. Lennon? Well...he's a Beetle, see... Forge got his name because I wanted a short, firm name for a cat that's made from living stone. Plus the word "forge" has several meanings. You take ore to a forge to remove the impurities, to create a better metal. You work at a forge to craft armor and weapons, like the friendships the hunt for Skarr created. And, as any dog owner will tell you, when a dog puts its head down and pulls on the leash to drag you all over, that's called "forging ahead"...and that posture looks just like Skarr's head-down, determined, fierce appearance.

Oakh now...most of her pets have names in Hawaiian. Oakh's not your typical Tauren, so I didn't want to fall back on the Taurahe name thing. But I wanted names for her pets that had a sort of lyrical sound like Taurahe does. Her pets' names include "Kilauea" (Terrorpene), named for a very famous volcano, "Kekoa" the red Madexx (which means "the brave one"), "Hunokeli" the Lone Hunter (means "hunter"), and "Kaulike" (Ghostcrawler), whose name means "balance." It's not always easy to find the right Hawaiian word that'll make a good pet name...but finding the right name is part of the challenge!

EDIT: And then there's Jynxi. Most of her pets have mechanical names, like Torque the turtle, Grinder the green devilsaur, and Crankshaft the warp stalker. A few of her pets have names because I got on an Repo! The Genetic Opera kick...but only a few. Graverobber the carrion bird and Pavi the chimera are the ones that stand out there.

[Aritria]

For mine, I usually base it off of a physical or emotional aspect of the pet in question. Misery, Arit's Loque'nahak, was named so because....well...camping him was misery, no doubt about it. Whiplash, her Warpstalker, is another. I was fighting with him, and he did the Warp attack, and I thought to myself, "Ouch, that must hurt the enemy's neck...like whiplash!".

Some are based off of colours, like Kaltrina, the Albanian name for "blue", Sapphira, the Greek variation of the word 'sapphire', and Blanche, the Italian or French variation for the word 'white'. Others, like Lyall, are based off of the words of the animals themselves.

Sometimes I just name them something, like Lucy and Mina, and then find myself using the names in a story I write about the characters, but it seemed I had Dracula on my mind when thinking of the names.

I hope this helps you guys. I usually find myself on 20000-names.com, which has an extensive name database. Type in a characteristic of the animal you're wanting to name, and refine from there. There really are some beautiful names out there.

[Monica Gems]

I stare at them and wait for something short and catchy. That's my process for every pet.

Koga, Nehro, Sunder, Murdoc... A few are situational, none are ever named after themselves.