Some names seem entirely used for our dog companions, like Fido or Fluffy. But there’s also plenty of crossover between the two that leaves people wondering, “do I have a dog name?”
The Washington Post recently explored the trend of dog to human names to find out which are most popular for each. To find this out, they looked at names of 61,000 dogs available for adoption on the website Petfinder, and compared them with baby names in Social Security Administration records going back to 1880.
The research showed:
- 1 in 7 Petfinder names were also common baby names
- 1 in 2,000 Petfinder dogs were named “Kevin”
- Around 20% of female dogs had names that also were common among American humans vs. 10% of male dogs
Many of the Petfinder dogs with “people” names were classified as either old fashioned or very modern.
- Dog names like “Daisy” or “Charlie” were popular in the 1880’s for babies
- Dog names like “Luna” or “Bella” were popular with human babies after 2010’s
- The most popular human names, including James, Michael and Mary, were barely present in either list of dogs
- Out of 61,000 adoptable dogs, only three were named Robert
Nicknames as dog names were much more popular than human names.
- The name “Bobbie” for a dog was 10 times more popular than Robert,
- There were 3x as many “Billys” as “Williams”
It seems that human names can help in adoption circumstances. Leslie Granger, president and CEO of the animal welfare organization Bideawee, said,
“We often hear from adopters that they felt an instant connection, because the dog shares a name with their mom or best friend.”
“We give human personality traits to our dogs and cats,” said Granger, who herself has cats named Maximus and Harry. “They’re more a part of our family now, so human names are more fitting.”
To view where your dog’s name stands on the dog name to human name ratio, visit The Washington Post.
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