Rory ranks at #406 with 307 entries, registered as gender-neutral. An Irish name (Gaelic Ruaidhrí, "red king"), Rory has been on a steady climb in both human and pet naming over the past decade, helped along by its unisex flexibility and the soft-tough register that makes it feel both warm and substantial.
The Celtic-naming register
Rory clusters with Finn, Murphy, Duncan, and Kennedy in the Celtic-and-Irish pet-naming cohort. Owners often pick these names with a specific heritage connection in mind, but the broader appeal (soft consonants, dignified roots, contemporary readability) is what drives volume across non-heritage households as well.
The Gilmore Girls layer
Rory Gilmore (Alexis Bledel, 2000-2007, with the 2016 Netflix revival) cemented the name's contemporary feminine register for an entire millennial cohort. The character (bookish, observant, warm) gives the name a specific tone that female-leaning Rory pets often inherit. The Rory baby name page shows the SSA chart climbing through the 2000s and 2010s, tracking the show's run and afterlife.
Sound and breed fit
The two-syllable shape (ROR-ee) has a sharp front consonant and a singing trailing vowel, projection-friendly across long distance for outdoor recall. Rory lands across breed sizes (the gender-neutral registration here is real, not a registration artifact) and over-indexes on medium dogs with confident temperaments (Australian Shepherds, Border Collies, mixed breeds with herding energy).