Fish ranks #3,382 in our pet name dataset with exactly 24 recorded pets — and yes, most of them are not fish. That is the whole joke, and it turns out owners find it endlessly rewarding.
The Literal Non-Literal Name
Naming a dog Fish, or a cat Fish, is a specific kind of humor: dry, committed, slightly absurdist. It requires an owner who enjoys the moment at the vet when they say the name out loud with a straight face. The name has essentially no traditional etymology as a pet name — it is simply the English word for the animal, applied to a different animal entirely. That gap between signifier and signified is the entire point. Owners browsing Fish on our name page tend to leave comments in the spirit of "he is a golden retriever and he hates water."
The Comedy of Misdirection
There is a long tradition of giving pets names that create cognitive dissonance — naming a giant dog Tiny, naming an indoor cat Hunter. Fish operates in this tradition but with extra commitment because it is not even a size joke; it is a species joke. The name is recorded as gender-neutral in our data, which tracks: comedy names tend to transcend gender expectations. It works especially well for Labrador Retrievers and other water-adjacent breeds where the irony deepens if they happen to love swimming.
Who Names Their Pet Fish
These are households with a particular sense of humor about pet ownership — people who understand that a pet's name is something you will say approximately ten thousand times over its life, and they want at least some of those times to produce a slight smile. The name is rare enough (24 recorded pets in our dataset) that you will almost certainly never meet another Fish at the dog park, which adds to the appeal. If you like names that double as conversation starters, Pretzel and Nacho share that same food-and-confusion energy.