Human names like Max, Molly, Charlie, and Lucy are being used more and more often for dogs. Stan Coren, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia, thinks there are two reasons why:
- Dogs occupy a new place in our lives, and
- The number of female dog owners is on the rise.
The first point makes sense. Dogs were once used for work–hunting, herding, transportation, defense, rescue, and so forth. Nowadays, most dogs are companions. We see them as family members, and the human names we give them reflect this upgraded status.
I’m not sure if the second point holds water, though. There may be more female dog owners, but I’m not convinced that “women favour human names more than men do,” as Coren claims. He didn’t present any proof of it in the article.
Source: Names increasingly reflect dogs’ integration into the family.
3 Comments
I think it’s funny that names I always thought of as having made the transition from people name to dog name (Max, Molly, Sadie, Jack) have now made the transition back to baby names. When we got our new dog, my first instinct was to name her Molly but I know too many human babies named Molly now!
Instead we went with Princess Leia. Which is a human name, too, but if you name your baby Princess Leia, well her sharing her name with a dog is the least of your worries.
I just had to check: last year, 287 baby girls were named Princess. I’d bet at least a one of them has the middle name Leia. (And that poor girl probably also has brothers named Obi-Wan and Chewie.)
lol, My Aunts dog is name Princess Leia.