Naming Cats

A self-help how-to guide

When I was a kid growing up my mother refused to allow us kids to have a pet. “Animals belong out in the wilderness, not near humans and certainly not inside a human home” she said. She always strived to maintain a perfectly sterile, germ-free home and, to her, animals were covered with germs.

Because of this the pet I had growing up was an imaginary pet. It was not your typical pet. It was a full-grown Bengal tiger. I named it Raja — probably because I saw that word in some library book about tigers that I had read. I was a voracious reader as a child and I read every book the library had about all the big cats; lions, tigers, cheetahs, jaguars, mountain lions, leopards, bobcats, lynx….

I was nineteen years old the first time I had a pet. But it really was not my pet. You see, I married a woman who had a kitty cat. So I got a pet by default. She had named the cat, Snuggy. What a stupid, stupid, stupid name! It did not fit the cat at all. It was a silly generic little-girl name.

The marriage was a huge mistake and only lasted a couple of years. The one good thing to come out of it, though, was a love for kitty cats which has remained with me my whole life. Snuggy went the way of the wife and after the last time I saw her I made a pact with God that I would personally name all the cats who would come into…