Chat Adoption Naming Stories

PandaPiggle · Jun 13, 2015

I've been curious whether people have a strong preference for keeping names or changing them when adopting piggies from rescues/shelters/craigslist, where they may already come with names. I've done a little bit of everything: some keeping, some modifying, and some straight up renaming, and I'm curious to hear about your adopted piggie naming stories, and your feelings on changing names when they're adopted. Now on to my pigs' stories, with their names in blue...

Agnes, my first guinea pig and avatar, a teddy, was adopted as a 4 year old pig, and the people said they'd never bothered to name her (for four entire years!!!), they just called her Guinea. So I spent that first night trying on names and none fit, until I thought of a pair of crazy haired twins (Agnes and Agatha) from the American Girl book series on Samantha. But when I googled Agnes, the first thing that popped up was Agnes from Despicable Me with the black ponytail that stands straight up, just like my guinea pig's hair. And so that was clearly her name.

I kept the adoption names on the next two adopted pigs. I considered changing Penny's name, but a friend wouldn't let me, and Bridget's name was in her Craigslist advert and so I had already become attached to the name when I adopted her.

And my last adoptee was adopted as Belle, but I felt like there was more to her name (and I didn't want two B pigs). I considered Isabelle, but given Twilight I wasn't feeling it, and my best friend said she looked like an M pig, so I though about Mariana, like from The Fosters. And then I combined Mariana and Isabelle for Maribelle, but it kept getting stuck in my mouth, so I found Mirabelle and it stuck.

If you don't know, I have 5 pigs, but I skipped Bridget's baby girl because she wasn't adopted... And while I love my baby to bits and pieces, I really want this to be about adopting pigs and not babies/pet store pigs, because it's not the same (even though I know you love their names too).

mdodge · Jun 13, 2015

I'm picking up my new piggie in two hours .her name is Arizona and I'm going to keep it .

Lagertha · Jun 13, 2015

My husband and I got our two pigs off craigslist from a super nice lady named Lyndsay, we still keep in contact with her and everything!

We spent all week picking names for our piggies and decided on Freya Luna for our girl, and Arya Emberly for who we thought was our second girl. Once we figured out Arya wasn't a girl, we separated the two and renamed him Ikarus Ambrose. I don't know if Lyndsay had named them prior to us adopting them or not, but yeah! The momma pig to our two piggies is named Elsa

With Freya expecting a litter any day now: my hubby and I have decided to give the pups nicknames instead of names since we won't be keeping them (friends of ours are adopting them from us!).

PandaPiggle · Jun 13, 2015

@mdodge I saw Arizona on your thread and almost asked there, but it seemed kind of tangential, and that's what started the thread, plus I had just finished telling the lovely ladies I adopted Bridget and Mirabelle from about Mira's change of name, so I was on a name thing.

@Lagertha Those are some fancy names!!! They bring me back to my college roommate's goldfish who got named Ingvar because we wanted to find the weirdest Viking name possible. And I refused to name Bridget's son because I couldn't keep him (I only have girls), and called him "The Boy" and had my friend who adopted him do the naming.

Lagertha · Jun 13, 2015

PandaPiggle said:
@mdodge I saw Arizona on your thread and almost asked there, but it seemed kind of tangential, and that's what started the thread, plus I had just finished telling the lovely ladies I adopted Bridget and Mirabelle from about Mira's change of name, so I was on a name thing.

@Lagertha Those are some fancy names!!! They bring me back to my college roommate's goldfish who got named Ingvar because we wanted to find the weirdest Viking name possible. And I refused to name Bridget's son because I couldn't keep him (I only have girls), and called him "The Boy" and had my friend who adopted him do the naming.

Thanks

They are our babies and we love them to death! That is such a cool name! We both have Viking heritage (I'm 25% scandinavian!) so I chose Freya because of that

Ikarus we based on the greek mythology story of the boy who flew too close to the sun, but we changed up the spelling

I wish we could keep the babies, but our apartment will only allow us to have the 2. We are getting Ikarus neutered next week so that he and Freya can be housed together again. They are bonded so as you can imagine: they are pretty lonely and miss each other like crazy! They can still see and smell each other, but I can tell they aren't as happy as they could be!

Once Freya has her litter (probably this weekend or next weekend) we are going to nickname them so we can tell who is who xD I got empty wine boxes (small ones) from work to use as houses for when the babies are weaned and they say "Chardonnay" and "Merlot" on the sides so my husband and I thought we could use those as nicknames haha!

LoveMyHerd · Jun 13, 2015

I have usually ended up changing my pigs' names, because I am just a crotchety baggage who is never satisfied with anybody else's names.

Bluebell, my Sheltie, originally came with the name Kibble. I hated that name. So I made a thread and got a bazillion suggestions and finally settled on Bluebell because she has a sweet delicate face, like the flower.

Lilly, my American. Her original name was Bubbles. (Which I honestly don't understand the connection.) She's a dutch patterned pig, and since she has a lot of white, I decided to call her Lilly.

mdodge · Jun 13, 2015

I was thinking of changing her name but after looking at her pic she just looked like an Arizona . my other two names are yams and jabbers.yams is named after her mom and her brothers were named jiggers and jabbers my daughter came up with them.sadly Their mom passed 3 yrs ago to a uri and her brother jiggers passed a year ago .

sallyvh · Jun 13, 2015

I've changed my pigs names after I adopted them. 3 of my girls have come from my local SPCA where I work/volunteer and my 4th girl is from Kijiji.

I adopted my first pair and their names were Ginger and Mila the little one. I didn't like their names much and I wanted to give them "old lady names" as I love old fashioned names. I switched Ginger to Margaret and Mila the little one to Gretchen.

A year later a pregnant pig came in to the shelter and gave birth to 2 little sows. A co-worker really wanted the Mom and one baby so I decided I would adopt the other. Her name was originally Petal and I knew I definitely wanted to change it to match the theme of my older girls. I decided to name her Olive.

My 4th girl came from Kijiji, a lady had rescued a pregnant sow and wasn't keeping the pups. She hadn't named them as she knew she was rehoming them so I picked out the name Penelope for my last girl.

I'm fine with re-naming shelter pets, especially when they don't already know their names. When my family rescued our dog we kept his name as he knew it really well and has been called Ernie for the whole 3 months he spent at the shelter. On the other hand we renamed one of our rescue cats as he had no response to his name!

Nazgul · Jun 13, 2015

I almost always change my pets' names after adopting them. I just find that the ones that I come up with tend to fit a lot better than their old ones. (no offense to their previous owners)

When we first took in Edel and Muggy, they were named brookes and Paddy. I spent ages trying to figure out good, "matching" names , and took them all from a little "small animal name list" I had made. Most were inspired by food, desserts, flowers, herbs, and the like. So I wanted to try and pick one from each category.

Eventually, after eyeballing the pictures the previous owners had sent me, I decided on 'Edelweiss' and 'Mugwort'. (which I chose mainly because it seemed to match their fur colors; black & white and black & brown, respectively)

Of course, I rarely call them by their full names anymore. lol. I always have a million different nicknames for all of my pets, so I usually refer to them as Edel/Weiss-y/Weissel bear and Muggy/Muggle/Mug Mug instead.

bpatters · Jun 13, 2015

After Flourish died, I adopted a new pig as a companion for Ruffles. They told me her name was Pekin -- that's the kind of duck that Peking duck is made out of in Chinese restaurants. When I asked why that name, they said that the volunteer who got her from animal control lived near a pond that had a flock of Pekin ducks on it.

She was a companion to a special needs pig that recently died, so she came back to the rescue. They promptly renamed her Fatty Patty, because she's a chunk of a pig (1370 grams), but they called her by both names.

When I got there and took a look at her, I knew exactly why the volunteer had named her Pekin. I'm showing my age, but when I was in high school, the boys' haircut that was all the rage was called a "duck's ass" haircut. Elvis Presley had one. And so does Pekin! So I've given her another nickname. I wasn't comfortable calling her "Duck's Ass" around the kids, so she's "DB" part of the time, substituting butt for ass.

Here's a picture, but it's not a very good one. She's too curious about the camera for me to able to get a good picture of her. In the second picture, Ruffles is on the left, Patty, AKA DB, on the right.

sabrinaxceleste · Jun 13, 2015

When I adopted my first pair, their original owners never told me their names, or if they'd ever had any. They'd been the result of an accidental breeding. I never thought to ask at the time either. Then again, I was young and excited and already had names picked out. lol

With my trio now, I went through a rescue, so they all had names: Maggie, Christina, and Jessica. Personally... I hate common names. Furthermore, I'd already had a name picked out for 'Maggie,' in memory of my deceased pig. I actually felt really bad about it because the foster mom had named her Maggie after her deceased favorite old dog, though she also said it was totally okay to rename her.

So... I did. I renamed them. Maggie became Dawn (my old pig's middle name, lol, not super unique but meaningful). Jessica became Jovi. Christina became Akira. But I didn't want to abandon their foster names altogether, so I molded them into middle names: Dawn Magnola, Jovi Jessikya, Akira Christiya (okay, I think, I can't 100% remember atm...oops).
I totally accidentally called Dawn "Maggie" for the first few weeks though.

PandaPiggle · Jun 13, 2015

Oh my goodness this is soooooo fun! I love all the cute names y'all pick out

@Lagertha - You never know how many you'll have (unless you did an ultrasound?) so be prepared because you might get more than two! Bridget had two and I didn't even know she was pregnant, but at the time I was also thinking my pig with an abdominal mass was pudgy and I hadn't seen a pig under 3 years old before (lots of limited experience problems...)

@mdodge - Jiggers and Jabbers are such silly names, I love them!!!

@sallyvh - I love the old lady name theme! Mine aren't quite 100% old lady names, but neither are they anything dreadfully common. It's funny how you made the one who came in with a G name be an M name pig, and M name pig became a G name... If it's not apparent I like the alphabet a lot!

@Nazgul - I love the plant names! I'm Swiss-American, so I especially like Edelweiss! And of course all mine have nicknames, too many to list!!!

@bpatters - I'm so sorry about Flourish, but DB is adorable! And she makes a super cute crazy hair buddy for Ruffles!!! And don't worry about "showing your age" it just means you have more experience to share with us younger people, about both guinea pigs and life in general. I'm in my early 20s, but I've got plenty of good friends who are at least your age if not older so no worries... besides I just learned something today about retro hairstyles!

@sabrinaxceleste - Those are such cute names! It would be so awkward if your pig had a really common name and then you had a friend or coworker with that name and then every time you went to tell a story then the person looked up... The closest thing I've got to a common-name pig is Bridget, but it's nowhere near as bad as Jessica and Christina... Those are like everywhere! I absolutely love Dawn Magnolia's name though, I think it's totally precious!

mufasa · Jun 13, 2015

I'm all about fresh name, fresh start. My Amy was Chloe when I adopted her, and Quinn was Mimi. Amy came from Futurama, as Borat (RIP) was named Leela until I found out he was mis-sexed, so I wanted to keep up that trend. Quinn was named for Daria's sister, since she has the same bubbly, "it's all about me" personality.

Lagertha · Jun 15, 2015

@PandaPiggle Sadly I couldn't afford to take her in for an Ultrasound since we are getting her brother neutered later this week, but lately since a bunch of ants recently got into Freya's birthing cage I have been checking her over regularly for ant bites after I clean her cage everyday. Tonight (after spending 3 GRUELING hours getting rid of another swarm of ants in our kitchen) I was checking her because her face looked swollen and I was worried she had been bitten again. It was just papaya juice on her fur thankfully, but I decided to do a full body check anyways. When I was gently running my fingers over her sides I noticed one side is a LOT bigger than the other so I'm thinking she may have 3 in there! Also, I felt and heard the babies gnashing their teeth! As soon as they did that I checked her pelvic bones and they are at 2 cm now! Her weight has also plateaued at 947 grams

So the babies will probably be here sometime this week! I'll let you know how many she ends up having

PandaPiggle · Jun 15, 2015

@Lagertha - if you want to hear my pitiful pregnancy story, to make you feel better, I adopted Bridget the day before she gave birth and I didn't even notice!!! It turns out my first guinea pig has an abdominal mass, which is why I didn't think pear shape was abnormal. Oops. Also Freya might be a little lopsided because of the internal organs getting squished about, so who knows how many little fuzz balls you'll have

BaconAndEggs · Jun 15, 2015

Such a fun thread!

When I got Bacon from who I believe was a breeder(I know, I know-I was somewhat naive then.) I don't think he had a name. Since he was a guinea pig, I figured I'd name him Bacon, even though I knew guinea pigs had no relation to pigs whatsoever. When I looked at him, he was a chunky fellow, so the name stuck.

I got Eggs from an accidental litter, and he was originally named Razor. I can see why, as he's an Abyssinian. But when I held him for that hour-long car ride home, I noticed that he had a sweet, quiet disposition. So, naturally, Razor didn't fit. I figured that Bacon and Eggs would be a cute pair name. But Eggs is brown and white, so I figured Eggs alone wouldn't work, and he therefore became Burnt Eggs. I don't think Burnt Eggs would be too nice of a name, and it is quite a mouthful, so I call him by his "second name".

bpatters · Jun 15, 2015

Just as an FYI, pregnant pigs can appear lopsided because their uteri have two horns. They have can pups in one or the other or both. If only on one side, they'll appear lopsided on that side. If on both, they'll appear more rounded.

Lagertha · Jun 15, 2015

@PandaPiggle - Oh gosh! haha we will see! Little booger still hasn't had them, but she is definitely laying around a lot more than usual, even more than last week!

Lagertha · Jun 15, 2015

@bpatters - I definitely saw and felt kicks on both sides of her belly

We shall see how many she has in the next few days!

PandaPiggle · Jun 15, 2015

@BaconAndEggs - I love your pair they're a perfect theme! I don't get using "Burnt" as a first name and actually using it in day-to-day life though, it's sad... I feel like I see a lot of guinea pigs up for adoption named Burnt Toast, except guinea pigs aren't even toast shaped? If someone could explain why that seems to be a popular name I would appreciate it. But your use of "Burnt" is adorable because it makes the pair. Clearly I tried to cook breakfast and your guinea pigs are the result (please nobody ask what happened the last time I "cooked" bacon...).

@bpatters - Oh wow that's cool! Guinea pigs are such strange fun creatures. I read everything I could find about pregnancy and babies after Bridget, I have no idea how that slipped through the cracks! You learn something new every day

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