Not ranks #117 with 937 entries, and it is one of the more curious entries in our top 200. The word reads as a typo or a registry error — but it is consistent enough across the NYC and Seattle datasets that the name is likely real, almost certainly originating from licensing-form quirks where owners wrote things like "not named yet" or "not sure" and the field captured the first word.
What the entries probably represent
The most likely explanation is data artifact rather than naming trend. When a pet license form asks for the animal's name and the owner is unsure, has not finalized a choice, or filled the form before fully naming the pet, "Not" can end up as the registered name in the database. Other plausible registry artifacts in our data include "None," "Unknown," and "NA," which appear at lower frequencies.
That said, it is also possible — and we cannot fully rule it out — that some owners genuinely named pets Not as a one-word joke or minimalist statement. The name is short, it is unusual, and the kind of owner who would pick it deliberately exists. We are not sure which fraction of the entries are deliberate vs. artifact, and we would not want to claim a number we cannot defend.
Sound and recall
If used deliberately, Not is a single syllable with a hard N opener and a clipped T tail. The structure is recall-strong on paper. In practice, the meaning of the word in conversation creates constant ambiguity — "Not, come here" reads as a sentence fragment rather than a call. Owners who picked it deliberately would face this issue every day.
One counter-reading
If you are looking at this page because you saw Not in our rankings and wondered if you should consider it, the honest answer is probably no. The data artifact explanation is more likely than the deliberate-naming explanation, and even in the deliberate case, the daily recall friction is real. If you want a short, unusual, single-syllable name, the rankings have better candidates. The pet-names directory has cleaner picks across every register, and one-syllable alternatives like Max and Sam are far better starting points.