Is Gidget a good pet name?

Gidget is a well-known pet name with 149 registered pets. Pets named Gidget are often described as spunky, enthusiastic, tiny.

Is Gidget a boy or girl pet name?

Gidget is more commonly given to female pets, though it can be used for any pet.

Gidget: Popular Pet Name — Meaning & Trends

Meaning & Story

Gidget is a portmanteau name coined for the 1957 novel and subsequent films and TV series — combining girl and midget into Gidget, a nickname for a small, enthusiastic teenage surfer girl. The name carries pure 1960s California energy: sunlit, optimistic, active, and irrepressibly cheerful. It's an affectionate name for someone small who thinks big.

Gidget is one of the most personality-packed names you can give a small female pet. It basically comes pre-loaded with beach energy, big ambitions, and an absolute refusal to let small size limit large enthusiasm. Chihuahuas and other tiny but fierce dogs are natural Gidgets — perhaps none more so than the actual Chihuahua who starred in the Taco Bell commercials in the late 1990s, who was officially named Gidget. Small cats with enormous attitudes also suit it perfectly. The name radiates warmth and vintage-California charm.

About the Pet Name Gidget

By Ivy Hung·May 6, 2026·1 min read

Gidget ranks at #785 with 149 entries, registered female. The name carries a famous Taco Bell Chihuahua association — the late-1990s ad campaign starring a real Chihuahua named Gidget — plus the broader 1959-1965 Gidget franchise of beach-girl movies and TV. On a pet registry, the name functions almost entirely as a small-dog cultural reference.

The Taco Bell Chihuahua overlay

Gidget the Taco Bell mascot ran from 1997 through 2000 and was one of the most widely-recognized commercial dog characters of her era. The real Gidget passed in 2009, and the name shows up on registry Chihuahuas in numbers that significantly exceed what the broader culture would predict. For many owners, Gidget is consciously named after the commercials.

Breed lean

The name lands almost exclusively on Chihuahuas and small companion breeds — Yorkies, small mixed breeds, and the occasional Pomeranian. The breed concentration on Chihuahuas specifically is among the strongest single-breed patterns on the registry. The Gidget movie franchise overlay (Sandra Dee, Sally Field) brings a smaller cohort of owners picking the name for the beach-girl warmth rather than the commercial.

Sound and counter-reading

Two syllables, front-stressed (GIH-jet), with a soft middle and a clean trailing T that carries cleanly at close range.

The honest counter-reading: the Taco Bell association is doing the heavy lifting on this name, and that association is dating quickly for younger owners who never saw the commercials. Older millennials and Gen X pick Gidget with the reference in mind; younger owners often find the name oddly retro without knowing why. The human Gidget page shows minimal SSA presence.