Luna is New Zealand’s most popular name for cats and dogs for the eighth year in a row, new data shows.
The name means goddess of the moon in Roman mythology. It topped lists from both Companion Animals New Zealand and AA Pet Insurance. Milo, Bella, Poppy and Daisy made up the rest of Companion Animals’ top five.
The ranking comes from more than 1.5 million microchip records on the New Zealand Companion Animal Register. A microchip is a tiny chip under a pet’s skin that helps lost animals get back home.
Rebecca Cameron, the interim chief executive of Companion Animals, said Luna had been hundreds, if not thousands, of pets ahead of other names in recent years. But over the past 20 years, Bella is still the most popular name, with about 20,000 pets, and Luna is only a few hundred behind. “We’re really keen to see if Luna takes it out for a ninth year in a row,” Cameron said.
AA Insurance’s data also showed that owners love funny twists on famous names, such as Rag Dolly Parton and Snoop Catt.
Richelle Okada owns the Neko Ngeru cat café in Lower Hutt. She says a good name should be easy to say, and not embarrassing to shout when you call your cat home. Her own cat, Pippin, is named after the smallest hobbit in The Lord of the Rings, because he was the smallest of his brothers and sisters.
Still, she has a warning for cat owners: “I know that whatever name you give them, they’re going to be able to ignore it.”
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