Bonnie ranks at #170 with 604 entries, and the name has lived multiple lives in American naming. It was a top SSA girls' name in the 1940s, faded for two generations, and has held a quiet but steady spot on pet leaderboards while sitting almost unused on the human chart.
The grandmother-name pet revival
Bonnie sits in the same recovering-vintage cluster as Daisy, Penny, and Dolly. These names hit their human peak in the early to mid 20th century, dropped off the SSA chart, and got picked up by pet owners looking for warm, slightly old-fashioned female names that do not feel like a baby is being named the same thing.
One counter-reading: Bonnie also carries the Bonnie and Clyde register for a smaller subset of owners, particularly those who pair the dog with a male companion named Clyde. That naming joke is more common in small-dog pairs than in single-dog households, but it shows up consistently enough to be a recognizable pattern.
Why the name fits at this rank tier
The Scottish origin ("bonnie" meaning pretty or fair) gives the name a built-in adjective register that descriptor-style pet names benefit from. Compare with Lady and Precious, which work the same descriptor angle from slightly different cultural angles. The Bonnie baby name page shows the human chart, where the name has not meaningfully recovered to its 1940s peak despite the broader vintage-revival trend that has lifted similar names. The pet-naming slot is where Bonnie has found durability, and the current rank reflects that steady second life across multiple generations of pet adoption.