Mishka ranks at #628 with 196 entries, registered as gender-neutral on this chart. The name is a Russian-language affection diminutive of Mikhail, with the secondary meaning of "little bear," and on a pet registry it lands cleanly on dogs with bear-coded visual register.
The little-bear naming logic
Mishka in Russian carries the dual reading of Misha-as-nickname and "little bear" simultaneously, and Russian children's stories lean heavily on the bear association. American owners reaching for Mishka are usually picking up on the bear register and applying it to dogs with thick coats, dark eyes, and stocky build. The naming is direct visual reference dressed in a Slavic-language phonetic anchor.
Owner-type and breed lean
The name lands disproportionately on Siberian Huskies, Malamutes, Newfoundlands, Bernese Mountain Dogs, and Samoyeds. Russian-American and Slavic-heritage households are overrepresented in the Mishka pool, but the name has crossed broadly into general American use in recent decades.
Sound and the cohort
Two syllables, front-stressed (MEESH-kah), with a soft sibilant middle. The name carries cleanly outside and avoids the harshness of harder Slavic-language consonant clusters. Mishka sits with Sasha, Misha, and Yuki in the small Slavic-and-Eurasian naming pocket on American pet registries. The human Mishka page shows minimal SSA presence; pet Mishka owns the cultural space, with the name reading clearly as pet-coded for most American audiences.