When I was growing up, we had a cat with identity issues... *he* was misidentified as a *she* initially, and so *he* started out as Mitzy. Ugh. It got no better when we discovered he was a *he* and we went for about a week to calling him Fritzy. (By this time, you understand, I had already embroidered *her* name on a satin pillow, and I figured it would be easier to just change the "M" to an "Fr" instead of starting over...) Well, that just didn't fit. Mom found him inordinately energetic and bouncy, so Tigger finally stuck (tigger also happens to be the Norwegian word for beggar, so a fit on both counts). I lost interest in the satin pillow, and he wouldn't have appreciated it anyway. In other ho-hum pet name news, a dog named Sparky came in and out of the household during Tigger's tenure.

I got to exercise some actual creativity when my aunt & uncle's new cat needed a name ~ an orange tabby, I decided he looked like Barkdust. And then there's my friend Margaret's cat, Spudgie. She has the softest fur you've ever felt!

Now I await the liberation from apartment living so I can install some cats (to be named Mugwump, Bernie, and Ert) as household fixtures.