Re: getting new cat soon...need name
Posted by:
Skiffle (---.cache.pol.co.uk)
Date: December 01, 2002 02:25AM
<HTML>I also suggest that you wait until you get your cat before choosing a name for it.
I have two cats. When I got the black and white one, she reminded me of another I had known, which was called 'Giselle'. I thought I would give my new cat a music-related name. Just think of all the lovely words available: Allegro, carrilion, minuet, Coppelia.... I consulted a friend's dictionary of musical terms. The only one that suited the skinny stray I had taken in was....Skiffle ! The least glamorous form of music ever, made mostly by teenagers using washboards, @#$%& acoustic guitars, harmonicas and combs wrapped in paper.
My other cat is called Diesel. A couple of hours after I got her home, she relaxed and started to explore. All of a sudden, this enormous, rattling purr came out of this skinny brown kitten. She sounded just like a diesel engine. She still has a big purr, and she's still as daft as a brush.
Ragamuffins are big cats, so how about Falstaff ? As for picking a name you can shout from the doorstep, a friend of mine got two cats last year. She and her partner wanted to name them after wines/grape varieties. I had previously owned a cat called Shiraz, named for the Persian city, because he was cross-bred Persian. So they didn't want to use that as a name. They settled on Merlot and Zinfandal. In the event, I persuaded them that they really didn't want to be standing in the garden yelling 'Zinfandal'. (Actually, Ed didn't take too much persuading). They settled for Lindisfarne, a company that makes fruit wines, which was all I could think of as an alternative at the time, as I don't drink grape wine. Krissy still insists that their next cat will be called Zinfandal.
Actually, I used to spend a lot of time standing on my doorstep yodelling 'Navarre !'. Puzzled the hell out of the students over the road until they made out what I was saying. He was named after Rutger Hauer's character in 'Ladyhawke'. The character is a soldier and good at killing things. My cat turned out to be good at killing things too. I never knew we had rats round here before.
There may be a moral in this.
I think Elmo is a dreadful name for an Abyssinian cat. Some wonderful friends of mine breed Abys and I have admit that some of theirs have odd names. The Ferret, Digit and Fother (who was a lot of fuss and bother), spring to mind. Elmo is a stereotypical American name. Abys do not have stereotypical American personalities. Of course, Jasper may have intended this contradiction (assuming he knows what Abys are like), but I don't think Thursday would have called an Aby, Elmo. She might have called him Quixote though.</HTML>