denkthoughts

Here’s a departure from my regularly-scheduled programming of borderline-pretentious philosophizing and pondering… people giving their pets weird names!

Something fun about working as a software engineer is that the core skillset transfers across different industries. Some people specialize and go really deep into one area for their whole career, but I’ve had fun bouncing around. So far in my career, I’ve gotten to learn about and work in various different fields: retail, logistics, e-commerce sales and fulfillment, payment processing, and e-commerce marketing. The core thing I do hasn’t really changed (the simplest explanation is “solve problems using technology”), but the setting has. For the past 2.5 years or so, my setting has been the veterinary industry!

Throughout my work, I see a lot of patient data from animal hospitals across the country. Whenever I stumble upon a pet name that makes me laugh (or cringe, or question humanity), I jot it down. Now I have the privilege of sharing my favorites with you.

Let me remind you that real people have named their beloved pets these things, and I’m not making any of these up. When you read these, please try to imagine yourself calling a dog over for a treat, or greeting a cute little kitten when you get home from a long day at work.

Basic nouns

• Milk
• Onion
• Calculator
  • So many syllables, so little personality
• Crowbar
• Garbage
  • Justice for Garbage, I bet he’s not even that stinky
• Forklift

Nouns, but better

Here’s where we start to see a bit more creativity.

• Cheese Louise
• Vegetable Lasagna Aka Veggie
  • I wish lasagna always counted as a vegetable
• Boobs
  • Imagine going to the vet to get vaccines for Boobs
• Oolong Milk Tea W/ Mini Boba 70% Sugar
  • The poor vet tech who had to enter this into the system
• Whozeewhatzit
  • This is entering my daily vocabulary

These ones make me feel weird for various reasons

• Pooty Do
• Big Nasty
• Craigory
• Puky

I want more details

• Oliver C. Fluffenstuffs
  • What does the C stand for? Why do I picture Oliver as a fancy regal boy wearing a crown?
• Mr. Senor President Sneakers
  • Three honorifics, but not even a dress shoe, smh
• A Girl Named Thomas
  • Is Thomas a female, or did a female give Thomas his name? Something to think about
• Salem The Doom Peanut
  • We need more punctuation here. Is Salem the world’s foremost Doom Peanut? Is Salem Peanut nicknamed “The Doom”? Unfortunately, we’ll never know

My personal favorites

• Pee Wee (Mr. Guapo)
  • Imagine how handsome you have to be to get the nickname “Mr. Guapo” after being a Pee Wee
• Chemical Warfare “Mica”
  • Notice that “Mica” is actually part of the word “Chemical”. Totally valid nickname, no notes
• Nn
  • Probably just a typo, but imagine trying to get Nn’s attention at the dog park
• Orange Basketball Jones
  • This is my absolute favorite. I don’t know why but I love this one so much. This is going on my future pet or child name list