Rufus ranks at #196 with 550 entries, and the name carries the same recovering-vintage texture that Otto and Walter work a few ranks away. Latin-origin and historically grounded, Rufus has been quietly cycling back into pet naming for the past 15 years.
The Latin-recovery cluster
Rufus comes from the Latin for red-haired, and the name has held a continuous if quiet presence in English-speaking naming since Roman times. The name dropped out of common use in the early 20th century and has come back through pet adoption faster than through baby naming. Owners who pick Rufus are usually working an old-soul or vaguely-British register, and the name fits comfortably on shaggy or red-coated dogs where the original etymology lines up visually.
One counter-reading: Kim Possible's naked mole-rat Rufus (Disney Channel, 2002-2007) and the Rufus character in Doctor Doolittle are real cultural anchors that produced a small cohort of Rufus pet owners in the early 2000s. Those owners tend to skew younger and pick the name with more comedic intent than the recovering-vintage cohort, who play the name straight.
Where the name lands by breed
Cocker Spaniels, Irish Setters, red-coated retrievers, and shaggy mid-sized mixed breeds over-index on Rufus. The two-syllable shape (ROO-fus) projects well and reads warmly, and the soft consonants give the name an approachable register that the harder Otto or Wally lack. The Rufus baby name page shows the human chart, where the name has been outside the SSA top-1000 for decades despite recent slow growth. The pet-naming slot is where Rufus has found durability, and current adoption rates suggest the name's slow climb back into broader visibility will continue.