Browse our analysis articles on pet names.
The cultural logic behind naming children Bear and dogs Henry reveals something unexpected about how Americans think about identity, status, and belonging.
Napoleon Solo won the Preakness Stakes, and people are suddenly Googling 'Napoleon' as a baby name. The crossover between racehorse names and baby names is weirder — and richer — than you'd expect.
National Pet Week's 2026 theme sparked a question: do pandemic-era pet names — heavy on human names like Henry and Olivia — reveal something about loneliness?
Exotic pet owners name their animals with 2.4x more naming entropy than dog owners. Rabbits, ferrets, and parrots reveal something real about creative naming in 2026.
87 million dogs in America and rising. NamesPop pet data shows whose names are growing — and it's not Rex and Duke. Here's what the puppy boom is actually doing to naming.
Pet naming is freer than baby naming — Grogu, Chewie, and Vader are all on the table. We graded 25 Star Wars pet names on callability, comedy, and character.
With 87 million dogs in the US and growing, you'd expect name diversity to collapse. NamesPop data shows the opposite is happening — and Gen Z is why.
Golden Tempo won the 2026 Kentucky Derby. NamesPop pet data shows Rebel in 247 dogs, Renegade in 89. Here's what racehorse naming conventions can teach dog owners.
Cherie DeVaux's Golden Tempo won the 2026 Kentucky Derby. The Jockey Club's 18-character rule says a lot about how humans name things — including pets.
Decoy is English in name, Dutch in breed lineage, Japanese in owner, and global in fan base. American pet owners are increasingly choosing the name without locating it in any single cultural origin. The pet-name file just gained a new category: bridge names, with no single cultural anchor.
The Frenchie's permanent #1 status is masking a quieter shift: the names owners pick for them have aged away from the high-fashion couture cluster of 2019-2022 toward sturdier, almost apologetic choices.
Pet naming used to be drawn from local geography. It's now drawn from 24/7 streaming algorithms. The geographic-to-fictional pet name shift is a more honest measure of where Americans actually live mentally than any survey.