Name That She-It!

Well, it only took us two months but we finally decided on a name for the new kitten. Before I tell you what it is, I want to tell you why it took so long.

It seemed with Swiffur, it was just easy. He came out from behind my piano, covered in dust, like a swiffer mop. It was instant agreement that Swiffur should be his name. The “fur” spelling was added immediately after and agreed upon right away. Easy.

Swiffur is such a cool name that even vets like his name, and I would imagine they hear all types of names. Albeit, it does lend itself to an impression of my house being dusty. But not anymore! Not since Swiffur! Ha!

Anyway, the bar was set high for us to come up with an equally funny, amusing, catchy little name. At first she was white, but as months go on, she is turning more cream colored. That added a level of uncertainty about certain names. For instance, we couldn’t name her Snowball and then have her grow up to look yellowish, like a yellow snowball. (Frank Zappa, “Don’t you eat that yellow snow, don’t you go where huskies go.”) She’s a blue point Himalayan, whose face, ears and paws are bluish-gray. And she has big blue eyes. The possibilities were many. But that was the problem; there were too many possibilities and we couldn’t commit to one choice.

We thought about making the names pair up with Swiffur since they are such a happy little couple



We entertained couple names such as:

- Swiffur & DUSTY
- Swiffur & DUSTMOP
- Swiffur & PLEDGE
- Swiffur & ENDUST
- Swiffur & BUFFY
- Swiffur & DUSTRAG (Sometimes it looks like Swiffur is wiping the floor with her and this is where she gets the gray spots! It would have been a good name but we would have ended up calling her Dusty and that is just too blasé.)
- Swiffur & MOPSY (she does resemble a mop and this was really close to sticking.)

All were perfectly fine names, but rather common. To look at her, she didn’t look like any of those names. As a kitten, she didn’t look like a “Dusty” or “Buffy”. I feel the same way about naming children before they are born. I guess it’s nice to pick names you like. But until the child comes out, you don’t know if it’s a good match or not. Oh sure, you can’t really tell what his or her name should be by looking at a scrunched up infant that just went through the tunnel of hell birth canal. But there’s something that happens when you hold a baby in your arms, you get a sense if you can call that child that name for the rest of its life. You can try to pick a name before the child is born, but you may have to come up with another name that is more suiting. That happened to me when I had Rachel. I didn’t know what I was having but everyone was telling me for 9 months that I was having a boy. “You’re carrying low, you must be having a boy”, and all the other wives tales that supposedly indicate what sex one is having. So, silly me, I picked out boy names that I liked. “Spencer” was at the top of my list. But when SHE came out (Surprise, it’s a girl!), Spencer didn’t fit. She was a girl, not a boy. And even though I could have still named her Spencer, it didn’t feel right. Not having picked out any girl names (damn those baby shower games that are supposedly fool-proof!), I had no idea what to name her. (Let me say here, in case Rachel reads this some day, it's not that I wanted a boy. Matter of fact, I was happier to have a girl. I was uncertain what I would do with a son, and eventually you have to let go of sons. But a daughter is a daughter and friend for life. It was exactly what was right for me. God knew what he was doing when he gave me a girl.) But anyway, naming her was not easy. Rachel, like She-It, went for 3 days without a name because I couldn’t decide. They told me I couldn’t take her home from the hospital until she had a name. So I had to commit, but to which one. Obviously, Rachel it was. But I tell this story because this whole “We have to come up with the perfect name” thing is nothing new for me. I admit it, it’s a problem. I’ll add it to the list of issues I have to go over in therapy, okay?

Okay, back to naming the cat…

We thought about changing Swiffur’s name to Swif-him and have her be Swif-Her. Swif-her and Swif-him. Cute, but rather confusing for all of us. A conversation between the two cats:

“Hey, I think they’re calling you.”
“No, I think they’re calling YOU.”
“Nope. They’re calling you. ‘Swif-fur.' No /h/ sound. No Swif-HHHHer. They must have forgotten they changed your name to Swif-him again. Stupid humans. They can barely remember their own names, never mind ours. Anyway, you better go.”
“Nope. I don’t care WHAT name they are calling, I’m not getting up and going to them. So it doesn’t matter what name they call me. Swif-fur. Swif-her. Swif-him. Whatever. Doesn't matter. I’m comfortable and I’m not getting up.”
“Meow. I agree.”
“Humans.”
“Yeah. Humans.”
Here Blah, blah, blah. Who wants a treat?
“Hey. Wake up. I smell fish.”
“Me, too.”
"Let's go!"

Yeah, changing Swiffur's name after calling him that for a year and naming them Swif-her and Swif-him would be too confusing. As humans, we still want to believe that they will come running when we call their names. :-)

Here is a picture of Kwan (a potential name at one point. Kwan stands for “Kitten Without A Name.”)



The names we came up with that focused solely around her looks were:

• Ash Licker (What? Doesn’t she look like she’s been licking ashes?)
• Cinder (In the same vein as above)
• Cinderelli
• Smudge
• Smudgeon (combination of Smudge and Smidgeon, because she was just a wee little thing. Ah, but not for long, so that name was out.)
• Gorgonzola
• Or better yet, Roquefort, the king of all bleu cheeses! C’mon! It’s perfect! Roquefort cheese is white, gray and it’s bleu cheese?! She’s a ‘Blue point with blue eyes.’ Roquefort! Yes, I like it! We can spell it differently like ‘RoqueFURt.’ Yeah, Roquefurt. What? Ugh. Heavy sigh. Rachel doesn’t like it, so it's a no go. Drats!
• Muffy - She looks like a hand warming muff that I had as a kid. My grandparents in London, England sent it to me for Christmas. I didn’t want the muff as much as I didn’t want this kitten! So to call it Muffy? Probably best not to be reminded of that. Albeit the kitten does look like a dirty muff with her gray splatterings. Or at least that's what mine looked like after I got done with it.
• She also looks like sheep's fleece, with some of her white fur being curly. She also has had a small bout with fleas. So her name was almost Fleacy. That one almost stuck.
• Michael Jackson - Okay, before you go judging me and thinking I’m making fun of Michael Jackson’s skin condition (all white with spots of grayish brown), it had nothing to do with that. Rachel liked standing the kitten up on her hind legs and making her front paws dance like the zombies in the “Thriller” video. I vetoed the name because I didn’t want to have to explain that every time I said the cat’s name.
• Flopsy - She’ll be walking along and all of a sudden she’ll just flop down on the floor, or your lap, or wherever she is. And when you pick her up, she goes all dead weight and you can do anything to/with her. Flopsy. I don’t know why this one didn’t stick. Hmm.












Two of my favorites were, (and on occasion I still call her them anyway):

1) Furryher –
a. Because she’s furry,
b. Swiffur is such a manly cat, next to him she is such a girl, thus Her, and
c. The definition of Furrier – one that cleans fur. That’s Her! FurryHer! (Damn, I liked that one!)

2) Deja Blue – Haven’t I made this mistake before? [as in, getting another cat?]


Ok, so, like “Name That Tune”, for the last few months we’ve been playing, “Name That She-It”. Constantly suggesting names and hoping they would stick. Waiting for the “That’s it!” moment. Barring calling her, “Fleacy Deja Blue Flopsy Mopsy Roquefurt Furryher Kane”, I thought we would never decide.

But I’m happy to report that it finally happened when we were vacationing in Maine. No big story or monumental moment. We were just driving down the street, and Dianne blurted out what was a stroke of genius. I immediately had one of those “Ah-ha!” moments. (But I’m convinced she didn’t realize how brilliant it was until we started analyzing the name. But I will give her credit for coming up with it initially.) She got her Maine in Name. Strike that, reverse it.

Are you ready? Ok, introducing (drum roll please):




BLUEPURR – Pronounced Blooper. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a blooper is “an embarrassing public blunder”, as in, getting one cat, protesting about it, then getting yet another one! According to Microsoft Word’s Thesaurus, Blooper - a mistake; lapse in judgment; faux pas. Yup, that about sums it up.

She's a Blue Point Himilayan who purrs all the time. So Bluepurr it is! We knew we had got it right, when at the first vet office visit with Bluepurr, the vet said that it was a great name. She said she gets so tired of the same old names that people give their pets. She said we should submit the ones we don’t use to the office so they can make suggestions to other people.

My Kaneclusion - Well, here’s the list, folks! Feel free to use any of the other names we didn’t use because I will never, hear me, NEVER, have any use for them in the future. I will not be making this type of blooper again! Not in this lifetime anyway! Not if Santa brings one; not if someone gets me one for my birthday; not if one comes meowing at my door starving (well, I might feed it but then it’s oughta here!). No more cats for this chick, or Rachel, or at least until she grows up and starts her own cat hoardery.



Meet Bluepurr…