A cat by any other name would not be the same. 'Same' just seems like such a bland name, though.

What do you know, the "Word of the Day" (an email service that sends an obscure word every day to me) is Ailurophile: a lover of cats. This is weird, because we brought home our new cat today. I think a cute name for her would be "Samantha". It was the name of the beautiful blond on "Bewitched" and the name of Chris' favorite slut from “Sex in the City”. Hmmm. We'll see. Is she really a "Samantha"?


She had a little trouble with the file folders. She seems more like a 'Trudy' or a 'Helena' to me. 'Birtha' seems fitting yet cruel somehow. ‘Divine’ seems so horribly gay, albeit a fine tribute. Maybe she's a 'Cindy' or a 'Misty'.

Interestingly, many people in former Eastern Germany were really attracted to names that ended with the “e” sound--they sounded particularly American to them, I guess. So, you'll meet an occasional 'Bobby' or 'Suzy' here. When you do, though, they are almost always from the East. I find it terribly difficult to address a grown man as ‘Bobby’. What if he were my boss? Weird.

I used to work for the government answering questions over the telephone about financial aid. I heard a lot of colorful names there. There was once a woman named 'Aquanet'. Inspired by ‘Prince’, there was a woman who had changed her name to be only one word: 'Beautiful'. (Come to think of it, Prince must have had such a hard time changing his one word name, especially considering ‘The Artist Formerly Known As’ surely did not fit on the form under “Christian Name”.)

'Pretty' seems to be a really popular African American name now. The best, though, was when I noticed that a young woman named 'Pretty' had the unfortunate last name of 'Bush'. My old roommate, also an African American woman, claimed that she had one cousin named 'Fruity' and one named 'Minty'. I had trouble believing that.

My cat needs a name. You must to be helping me! Suggestions?