Pixel

Pixel is a modern English word name from the portmanteau of picture element — the smallest unit of a digital image. Coined in the 1960s with the rise of digital imaging technology, it has taken on a playful, tech-savvy quality as a pet name, suggesting precision, brightness, and a certain digital-age charm.

Pixel is the pet name of choice for the tech-savvy household, the kind where smart home devices answer to voice commands and the cat has her own Instagram. It is clever without being insufferable, modern without being disposable. The name suits small, bright-eyed animals — cats particularly — whose every expression seems to communicate in high definition. Spotted or multi-colored animals wear it especially well, since a pixel is by nature a single point of color in a larger picture. There is something genuinely poetic about the name: this small creature is one perfect point of light in the bigger picture of your life.