Imaginary Friends

This is Barney. Cute, huh? Barney is a recent acquisi-tion of my friends Ira and Russ, who live in Pacifica, Calif. They also have a dog named Kuma. This Barney cutie-pie got me to thinking about the names my friends and family have come up with to apply to the crea-ture comforts in their households. Besides Barney and Kuma the dog’s names are Uli, Klaus, Tigger, Jag, Maverick, Tucker and Capuccino (Cappy).

The people who are owned by cats are Jessie, Trish, Ben and Michael. Their cat’s names are Cleo, Minnie, Kitty (pretentiously pronounced kitTAY) and Toby.

Most of my friends do not harbor animals but, nevertheless, I apolo-gize to anybody, two or four legged, I’ve forgotten.

The reason I’m bringing this up is that I recently fell across a website that listed the current most popular names of dogs and cats in both the United States and Australia. They list 60 for both species. The top five for females: Maggie, Molly, Daisy, Bailey and Abby. Coming in sixth is Tiger. For males it’s Buddy, Jake, Max, Hunter and Cody. Sixth is, again, Tiger! I’m only presuming this website is legitimate but the result seems a little fishy to me. Bailey? Cody? Well, they do in-clude Australia in the mix so maybe it works.

I do like the names Max for a male and Maggie for a female; canine or feline being beside the point. Up until now my imaginary pets have been nameless so I guess giving them an identity is the next step in doddering into old age. Gender has yet to be determined. Imaginary pets don’t really need reproductive systems anyway so proof of gender is, thus, not necessary.