How To Choose The Best Dog Name

Adding a furry member to the family is always happy news, but finding the right name for your new puppy can be a daunting endeavour. Here are some things you should consider before landing on the perfect name for your pooch.

Some sounds are better than others

Dogs can distinguish frequency ranges way better than humans can, this is why names with vowels, that change tone when you call for your pooch, are better. Think of Milo, Bella or Ruby for example.

According to experts, using sibilant consonants like “s” or “sh”, or crisp consonants like “k” or a hard “c”, will help your dog differentiate their name from ambient noise. Some examples could be Coco or Cassie.

Keep it short

Sir Furcelot McBarky may be appealing, but you need to consider practicality. You will be using this name A LOT, and some times you will have to repeat it a hundred times in the span of seven seconds, so keep it short. Most experts agree that two syllables is the right spot. Something like Tessa or Yoshi will work better than Augustine.

Think about commands

We use commands with our pooches in a daily manner. Think of how confusing could it get for your puppy Bo to understand that wen you say “No” you are not calling him, or for little Shae to understand why she shouldn’t be following you wen you call “Stay”.

In a similar way, be mindful of popular names. Max is a classic for a reason, but when you take your puppy to the dog park and four different humans are calling his name he may get a bit confused.

Choose one for keeps

Changing your dog’s name is doable, specially if you keep it in the same ballpark (think “Bobby” and “Tobby”), but not recommended. Dogs recognize their names because there’s something happening after you use it, for them, the name is a cue not an identifier. So changing their name from their perspective is like changing the command “fetch” for “go get it”, at some point they will get it, but it will take some getting used to.

If you are still having trouble deciding, here is a list of 500 doggy names to get some inspiration from ;)