Last month, Rover magazine released its round-up of the year?s most popular pooch names and there wasn?t a Rover, Fido or Lassie among them. Instead, the list was populated with names like Sophie, Bella, Oliver and Max. Since Rover (a pet-care services app) first started tracking top names in 2013, ?human? names for dogs have been the trend that just won?t quit. That makes sense when you look at the larger state of person/pet relations.
We dress our dogs in human-style clothing, send them to spas, take them to work and pay for fancy dog food that is better (and more expensive) than what I ate for dinner last night. The anthropomorphization of our animal companions is seen in dog owners who refer to themselves as ?parents,? taking pet leaves and hiring pet therapists. ?My husband and I sometimes call our dog Hawaii because we could have taken a trip there with the money we spent on his knee surgeries,? says Kelly Caldwell, former editor of Dogs in Canada magazine. That dog, by the way, is actually named Henry, brother to Evie (a cat) and Dottie. Caldwell laughs at how much things have changed. ?I was eight years old when I got my first dog,? she says. ?My dad took me to the Humane Society and I chose a black Lab. We called him Blackie.?
A lot of dog names used to be associated with physical characteristics (Spot, Fluffy) and behaviours (Digger, Yeller). The turning point may have been in the mid-1980s, when Ronald and Nancy Reagan named their springer spaniel Rex after a W...