Moby

Moby is a name most powerfully associated with Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick, where Moby Dick is the great white sperm whale pursued across oceans. The name carries themes of obsession, enormity, and the untamable wild — and has gained contemporary cultural presence through the musician Moby.

Moby is a magnificent name for a large white dog or any animal whose presence has the kind of gravity that stops you mid-thought. The Moby-Dick association is one of American literature's most iconic, lending the name a combination of awe and mystery that few pet names can match. In modern culture, the musician Moby reclaimed the name with a gentler, more introspective energy — which adds a thoughtful, artistic dimension. For a large, majestic dog — a white Great Pyrenees, a Samoyed, or any breed whose size commands a room — Moby fits with a kind of quiet inevitability.