When I was a child our family cat (my mother's cat, actually, whom she had named Dingtoes--she was polydactyl) had a litter of which I promptly named the four survivors Ik, Bik, Fik, and Kitchy Koo (don't ask why; how does a 7-year-old come up with names anyway??). The three brothers were all tuxedos with different facial markings, but the one girl was mostly white, and I latched onto her right away. The plan was to give away the brothers, but eventually only one was adopted, and my mother (wise woman) promptly changed Bik and Fik to Big Boy and Funny Face, which suited them perfectly. Unfortunately, mom and brothers succumbed to the hazards of being indoor-outdoor cats, but Kitchy lived to be 15 and saw me all through my school and college years. She missed me when I went off to college, even though she gave me more than my share of scars in childhood when I insisted on picking her up when she didn't want it. She was also polydactyl, BTW.
In my twenties at my first apartment I got Mici, a white longhair, from the family downstairs who had gotten her from the husband's parents. She came with the name Butterball, which I just couldn't see using or even nicknaming. But my boyfriend at the time was a Croat and he started calling her Mici, pronounced Mee-tzee and means cat or kitty, and it stuck. I had her for 13 years (I figure she was about 16 at the end) and what finally got her was ear cancer.
Our current boys are Oreo and Macaroon. Oreo came with his name from the family he was born into, because he's black & white bicolor, and on his black back there's a faint white O. The children named him. We could have changed it but we couldn't think of anything better.
Seven plus years later we got an orange tabby-with-white kitten from a family that was fostering a mother and her litter. They had given all the kittens names just because, and this one was called Jack; but that wouldn't do because we have a niece named Jackie. So I started thinking what would go well with his color, and all the names of sweet things of that color sounded too feminine to me. Then one day I blurted out, "You look just like a toasted coconut macaroon!" And that was it. Of course we call him Mackie almost all the time. It even rhymes with his original name!
In my twenties at my first apartment I got Mici, a white longhair, from the family downstairs who had gotten her from the husband's parents. She came with the name Butterball, which I just couldn't see using or even nicknaming. But my boyfriend at the time was a Croat and he started calling her Mici, pronounced Mee-tzee and means cat or kitty, and it stuck. I had her for 13 years (I figure she was about 16 at the end) and what finally got her was ear cancer.
Our current boys are Oreo and Macaroon. Oreo came with his name from the family he was born into, because he's black & white bicolor, and on his black back there's a faint white O. The children named him. We could have changed it but we couldn't think of anything better.
Seven plus years later we got an orange tabby-with-white kitten from a family that was fostering a mother and her litter. They had given all the kittens names just because, and this one was called Jack; but that wouldn't do because we have a niece named Jackie. So I started thinking what would go well with his color, and all the names of sweet things of that color sounded too feminine to me. Then one day I blurted out, "You look just like a toasted coconut macaroon!" And that was it. Of course we call him Mackie almost all the time. It even rhymes with his original name!
