The Name Game

As Makai and I took our walk this morning, I reflected on the names of our goats. For the most part they have been named by our daughter, Gwaltney, “our little ham.” (FYI: Gwaltney is not her real name, she is embarrassed enough that I write these little stories. I am trying to stave off her total and abject humiliation by hiding the fact that her real name starts with the letter “C”.) For the first time it dawned on me that most of the goats had names starting with the same letter. Clover, Corriander, Chrysanthemum, Cassidy. Of course there are other names like Ben and G.G., and most famous of all, Magic, a buck that Mrs. Commish and Gwaltney purchased. Believe me, my golfing buddies have, a good time with that name. “Hey Commish, are you still doing Magic?” or “The Commish can’t have another cold one because he has to get home and do Magic again.” Heh, heh heh. The BGA boys are so clever.

Gwaltney, "The Little Ham," many years ago

While realizing that I would never be in a position to have a stadium named after me (like “Commish Caverns at Camden Yards”), the act of giving a name to someone or something has always seemed important. I suppose I came by this honestly as, reflecting back, my parents had a naming system of their own.

When they were first married they bought a chow dog and named him “Rusty,” because of his red color, I assume. When Rusty died they got another chow chow and named him “Rusty.” Now we referred to them as “Old Rusty” and “New Rusty”. When “New Rusty” died he was replaced by, are you ready, Rusty III. Then came Rusty IV, V, VI, VII, and VIII. (There is some family debate as to whether there are 7 or 8 “Rusties;” I am no longer sure.) In conversation now they are known as First Rusty, Crazy Rusty, Mean Rusty, Fat Rusty, Good Rusty, Current Rusty, etc. There is some confusion when Crazy Rusty is mixed up with Mean Rusty because Mean was also crazy or with Good Rusty because Good was also silly and crazy sometimes.

My parents also named their three sons with the same initials as “Rusty Chow S.” So, we have three R.C.S. brothers and we think all of this derives from the soda pop our Dad liked. His cola of choice wasn’t Pepsi or Coke but Royal Crown Soda. The family secret is no more!

Makai, our Anatolian, got his name because we were in our “Hawai’ian” period. Makai means “towards the sea.” Max is the most popular dog name and “Mak” was close but different. Our chocolate lab was named “Jack”. His father was Jack, making him Jack’s son. So he really named himself, "Jackson Browne." Zeus, our rottweiler, was a year and a half when we got him and that name was already perfect. We also had a Doberman who was so perfect that we said he was just “Dandy.” Many years ago, Mrs. Commish and I went to college in cold and snowy Rochester and had a huge St. Bernard named Artemus (a contraction of “Arctic Moose”). All of these are stand alone names; not pattern names like RCS and the Rusties.


Mrs. Commish and I raised and showed Persian cats for almost thirty years and this is where we honed our naming skills. Our first Grand Champion was “Bilbo Baggins” from the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. We followed with Legolas, Heathertoes, Beorn, Glorfindel. We tried to stick with some of the lesser known characters to show our “creativity.” We moved on to other themes.

“Patent Pending” was a beautiful blue girl that was known as Fatty Patty. We bought her to be the foundation of our line. Fatty Patty gave us the “Leader” litter with three grand champions in it. Gwaltney was responsible for these names as she always wanted to be first in line; she wanted to be the line leader. We let her name the blue boy we were keeping “Line Leader” and he became a national winner as the Best Blue Persian. His brothers also granded and were named “Scout Leader” and “Troop Leader.”

Cotton Baugh                                Line Leader

We had a series of work-related (film and printing) cats: Kodacolor (Kodie), Shadow Dot, First Edition (Edie). Then we moved to the “balls”. There was a terrific cat named Radabaugh and we bought a cream boy from him. We wanted to keep the name going so we named our boy “Cotton Baugh.” Cotton was also a national winner and he sired a line that included “Basebaugh,” “Basketbaugh,” “Black Baugh,” etc. There were some cats that we named to honor old friends like the “Margret” and “Edgar” litter (Stonybrook Cattery) and “Louise Birdwhistle” (Chatalain Cattery).

Many of these names are still remembered decades after the cats were shown. It goes to show that names are important. Give them some thought and make them count. Our daughter Gwaltney’s middle name is “Leigh.” She got that from a good friend of ours that we haven’t seen in many years but every time we say Gwaltney Leigh’s name it brings to mind the “original” Leigh with a smile and some fond memories. If you are going to name something or someone, take the time to make it count. Just say no to names like MoonPie Zappa or Cherie Sunbeam Madonna.