Browse our analysis articles on pet names.
Golden Retrievers are called Sunny and Buddy and Daisy. German Shepherds are called Rex and Zeus and Titan. This is not just anecdote — when you look at breed-level name data, the personality-projection patterns are statistically visible.
When I built the pet names section of NamesPop using NYC and Seattle licensing data, I expected dogs and cats to pull from the same name pool. What I found was more interesting.
You can train a dog to respond to "Bartholomew." You will probably start calling him "Bart" within a week. The persistence of short pet names is not an accident — it is a cognitive convergence between animal processing and owner behavior.
Fido is nearly extinct as a dog name. In NYC licensing data, dogs named Theodore outnumber dogs named Fido. The shift from Rex and Spot to Luna and Charlie is not just a naming trend — it's a structural change.
My rabbit is named Money. I did not name him that because I prioritize finances over affection — it was a joke that became a term of endearment. But the question of what pet names reveal about how we relate to animals is a real one.