The Name Game

We have a new family member! I adopted a cat! I guess my “inner JessiCat” was craving some feline company, because I never really considered myself a "cat person".

I was wrong. You can totally be a cat and a dog person (and a fish and hamster person, too) at the same time!

That’s him right here!

He's beautiful, right? It’s not the same cat, though, that I talked about in my Karma Chameleon post.

On Saturday, I went back to the pet store to see the animal rescue man and the cat who had previously found me wasn’t with him. I described the solid gray cat with the captivating green eyes and he knew which one I meant.

“Oh, that’s Manette.” he said.

Manette? What kind of name is that? It sounds like a moniker for a female impersonator or something. Are there drag queen cats?

It turns out Manette was adopted during the week from his shelter. Great news for Manette, but I was disappointed. I had been thinking about that kitty all week.

He told me that if I liked Manette, I should take a look at this other cat that was rescued after surviving being used as target practice along with Manette. He took a cat out of the cage and introduced him as Captain Kitty. He said he was about 3 years old.

Captain Kitty? Who the heck is naming these cats? Maybe this one was a supercat like Captain America or Captain Marvel and would make a nice accompaniment to my Catboots! I wondered what his amazing powers were.

Faster than a speeding bullet? Obviously so.
More powerful than a locomotive? He’s not very big. I really didn’t think so.
Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound? I was about to find out because I totally fell in love with this cat. We passed the adoption screening and home we went.

I brought him home to meet the family and, in no time, all 8 lbs. of supersoft tan and white fluffiness captured everyone’s heart. Even the dog likes him! He is supersweet, supersnuggly and loves to chase the red dot on the floor from my laser pet toy.

He can’t seem to get enough of the kids and best of all, has used the litter box from minute one! Fabulous!

However, he is still a cat with no name. I’m just not a fan of “Captain Kitty” so we’re going to change that.

All of my pets (except for the fish) in the last 20 years have had police related names.

I had my beloved rottweilers, Felony and Miranda and when they both passed away, I adopted BAILey and Book ‘Em (like in, Danno!) from a local shelter. My sweet BAILey, who passed away last summer, was a shepard mix and Book ‘Em is a rottie mix. All of these dogs were easy to name with police terminology.

Naming a cat seems to be a little harder for me. He’s very curious and stares at everything so I think I’d like to name him BOLO, short for Be On The Lookout. We could call him Bo. Little Daughter says it reminds her of Bo Bice from American Idol and she can’t stand him.

Fine, just call him BOLO,then.

My second choice is to dump the police words altogether and go for something else I love....don’t be surprised.....it’s.......JOVI!

He looks like his name could be Jovi and everybody LOVES Bon Jovi. It’s kind of a requirement to live in my house AND I’m going tomorrow night to see The Jovi live in concert. Woo Hoo!

Other suggestions from la familia Rock Chick are Whiskers (no way-ACK!), TJ (which doesn’t stand for anything-I don’t get it), Cap (short for Captain Kitty), Fluffy (please-no typical cat names), Taffy (‘cause he’s caramel and white-makes me want to gag) and Kitt (after the super car and of course, he’s a kitty cat.) I do like Kitt, too.

What’s your vote?

Will it be BOLO? Or is Jovi more to your liking? Do you prefer more typical cat names like Whiskers, Fluffy and Taffy or should we consider Cap or Kitt?

Maybe you have another suggestion!

I’m having a hard time with this Name Game because I want the name to be purrrrrfect, just like my kitty cat.