Pets Are People, Too: What’s in a Name?

There was never a dog more suited to the name Petey than my Petey. He’s a masculine dog with a ferocious bark. But he’s also a wuss, afraid of noises, other dogs and, above all, his own farts.

I didn’t bestow on Petey, a small, brown dog of unknown origin, his ideal name. I adopted him from my neighbor who found him in her yard. She started calling him Peter. As his personality emerged, he became Petey.

We never considered renaming him. He was and still is the most Petey of Peteys. The name captures everything I love about dogs: their intrinsic humor, their absence of self-awareness, and their occasionally disarming humanness, such as when Petey stares at the television during a pivotal moment of a Yankee game.

I was surprised to learn that Petey, such a quintessential dog name, isn’t a popular choice. According to BabyNames.com, which ranks pet names based on reports from pet insurance companies, Petey isn’t even in the top 100.

Most popular for dogs are Max and Molly, followed by Buddy, Bella, Jake, Lucy, Bailey, and Maggie. When it comes to their pets, modern pet parents prefer to go human. Max is #160 on the Social Security Administration’s list of popular human baby boy names. Molly is #105 for girls. Petey isn’t on the people list at all.

Although Buddy isn’t a popular human name for the birth certificate, it’s #101 on BabyName.com’s favorite baby name list and an accepted nickname for a human boy. The other beloved dog names are also popular for human offspring.

What happened to Spot, Rover, and Fido? Those names fell out and in came Charlie, Jack, and Cody, a trend that’s in sync with the tendency of pet owners to treat their pets like children. About half of all pets have people names, estimates Bow Wow Meow, which tracks pet names based on its identification tag business.

Back when my sister named our childhood dog Cricket, dogs didn’t wear seatbelts or have health insurance policies taken out on them in case they became insulin-dependent. Cricket was lucky to get a bath once a year. Today, dog boutiques are thriving and dog daycare centers have waiting lists.