UNDERSTANDING YOUR CAT
- Select - Caring for Kittens and Mom Cat Litter Lessons Cat Lovers Live Longer Cats In Heat Cats Need Exercise Too Choosing Your Cat Choosing Your Cat's Name Clean Cats, Happy Cats Flying with Cats Good Cats with Bad Habits Good Habits for Cat Owners Grooming Your Cat Holiday Kittens Might Not be Jolly Home is Where the Scent Marks Are House Training Your Cat How to Give Nose Drops If Your Cat Could Talk Keeping Your Cat's Teeth Clean Kittens Eat... and Eat... and Eat Life Stages of a Cat Looking Into the Eyes of a Hunter Neutering and Spaying On Claws and Paws On the Hunt Pets Help Patients Playing with Your Cat Preventing Boredom Replacing a Pet Rewards and Reprimands Saying Goodbye Scratching Sleep Teaching Kittens Good Manners The Domestication of Cats The Household's New Cat The Sound of a Clean Ear The Ties That Bind Us Training Your Cat Urinary Tract Diseases (FLUTD) When Cat Owners Get Pregnant Where to Get a Kitten Your Cat's Diet: Grass Your Cat's Sense of Smell

CARING FOR YOUR CAT
- Select - Carbs and Your Cat Caring After Illness or Surgery Caring for Acute Diarrhea Caring for Chronic Diarrhea Caring for Food Sensitivities Caring for Heart Disease Caring for Kidney Failure Caring for Kitten Orphans Caring for Kittens and Mom Caring for Older Cats Caring for Struvite Stones Choosing a Vet Clean Cats, Happy Cats Feeding Finicky Cats Feeding from Kitten to Senior Feeding Meat to Your Carnivorous Cat Food Allergies Are No Picnic Grooming Your Cat Heart Problems Hidden Household Dangers Hitching a Free Ride: Intestinal Parasites How to Detect Health Problems Keeping Your Cat Healthy Making Fleas Flee Neutering and Spaying Playtime is Anytime Poisonous Plants Protecting your Cat from the Flu Skin Mutations Staying Warm in the Winter Symptoms to Recognize The Healthy Cat The Importance of Water The Sick Cat Vaccination Weaning a Kitten Weighing in on Fat Cats What to Do in an Emergency Worming Your Cat's Diet: Dietary Fiber Your Cat's Diet: Minerals Your Cat's Diet: Nutrients Your Cat's Diet: Vitamins

ALL ABOUT KITTENS
- Select - Caring for Kitten Orphans Caring for Kittens and Mom Choosing Your Cat Choosing Your Cat's Name Holiday Kittens Might Not be Jolly House Training Your Cat Keeping Your Cat Healthy Life Stages of a Cat Neutering and Spaying Teaching Kittens Good Manners The Household's New Cat Training Your Cat Vaccination Weaning a Kitten Where to Get a Kitten





Your cat deserves a good name, a name that gets at the essence of your cat, who he is, what he looks like, his personality. So, what's a great name for a cat? How do you decide when there's so many options?

The first thing to consider is that cats are better at learning names that consist of only one or two syllables. They react especially well when their name ends with "ie" or "y," which may explain all of the very happy "Fluffies" out there. The second is whether you will want to use the name all the time, or will get sick of it. For instance, long, aristocratic-sounding names may sound interesting, but can get tiresome to say every day. Long names will get shortened, and sometimes come out sounding quite different than you expected.

Warnings aside, there's literally no end to the names you can choose. You can base his name on a physical feature, a personality trait, a favorite author, artist or singer, mythological names, or the circumstances by which he came into your life. Take your time, write a list, narrow it down, try out a few names before you settle on one - just don't take too long or your cat may have a minor identity crisis. Whether your cat is a Lucky or Fluffy or even Pandora, your new friend deserves the name that's just right, and the effort it takes to find it.

There is a beautiful quotation by T. S. Eliot, the English Nobel prizewinner for literature in 1948. He said that every cat should have three names: the everyday name, a dignified official name, and a third one -- "which only the cat knows and doesn't tell. You might be clever, you might be begging -- she will remain the only one who knows."

To get your thoughts flowing, here are some of the most popular cat names in the US and Canada:

Top 20 Female Names

1. Maggie
2. Molly
3. Lady
4. Sadie
5. Lucy
6. Daisy
7. Jasmine
8. Amber
9. Pumpkin
10. Samantha
11. Dakota
12. Nala
13. Chelsea
14. Bella
15. Daphne
16. Sophie
17. Angel
18. Tasha
19. Princess
20. Chloe

Top 20 Male Names

1. Max
2. Tigger
3. Buddy
4. Bailey
5. Sam
6. Rocky
7. Buster
8. Gizmo
9. Owen
10. Milo
11. Charlie
12. Jake
13. Harley
14. Rusty
15. Toby
16. Murphy
17. Sylvester
18. Simba
19. Barney
20. Oscar

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