“Muskies”, “balls” and “murzik”are no longer trendy. Human rights activists all over Russia are increasingly coming up with unusual names for stray cats. Is it just creativity, a tribute to fashion, or a question of efficiency, a desire to help the cat find a home as quickly as possible?
For the International Day of Stray Animals together with Dobrom Mail.ru and charitable foundations helping animals all over the country we found out how creative names for hundreds of homeless “tails” are born. And how the nicknames often become the most important keys that can open the door to a new life for the pet.
We have been telling about each pet we help in our social networks for a long time already, in order to find a home for it as fast as possible. And we’ve noticed that it’s the name that can hook a potential owner.When you go through all the names in the search engines, you start to fantasize in absolutely different directions.
For example, some of our staff call the entire litter by one letter.Also, many nicknames are born from the appearance and temperament of the animal. The name can be a fruit, and a vegetable, and some foreign word. The main thing is that the word carries a list of characteristics of a particular animal. And then the name meets its “client,” and ideally, the client meets a loving owner.” Totoro wants to go home!
“For me, a philosophical, symbolic moment is important in creating the name of an animal,” says Natalia Tsvetkova, coordinator of charity programs at the RAY Foundation.
We usually take into the fund animals with painful stories – those who have somehow ended up on the street, experienced betrayal, disease, or anything else unpleasant. We would like to put an end to all this and help cats start a new life.
And when they don’t have an owner yet, but some new story has already started, I want to give them a new name – a strong, bright, unusual one. I always want to put some sense into the name, that is, not just call it D’Artagnan or Constance, so that it would be unusual.
I want the name to have a living history. Some kind of symbol, the key to this animal. And then this name can be a kind of sign for the potential owner.
For example, we have a cat named Totoro, named after the character from the Miyazaki cartoons. He came to us as a kitten and looked so miserable that I did not know if he would survive or not. And I wanted to give him some joy – to show that he was so cool, like from a cartoon.
And recently a girl came to us and asked about Totooshka, because it was his name that caught her eye. She told us that she liked Scandinavian epos and it seemed to her that the name Totoro is consonant with the name of Scandinavian god Thor.
She remembered how one day she was walking down the street and thought she wanted a cat named Thor. And then – our Totoro!
Understandably, in the context of all the problems that need to be solved in the life of a homeless animal – such as treatment or spaying – the name recedes into the tenth plan. But I want to make it beautiful.
Thank You !