Naming my Basenji
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Eventually they seem to sort of name themselves. The right one will feel right. My daughter named our first one Sayblee. She took weeks to decide (9 yr old) and drove me nuts.
((Name: Sayblee 0
Gender: Girl
Meaning of Sayblee
Stay in Home; From Liberia))2nd one I named Arwen (yeah Lord of the Rings). She didn't ROOOO properly, she said RRRRR. So the ARR wen fit.
Cara I named for a character from the Sword of Truth series.
Our Samoyed was harder... my daughter wanted to name him Moose (pamplemoose... french for grapefruit) but we had just lost Merlin and her dad and I kept calling him Merlin and being sad so she changed it to Spencer (Criminal Minds). Oddly, after a month, we just eased back into Moose.
So try a few out, see if they fit the dog, if they trigger happy or good responses. Dogs adjust... so if you go through a few names, they don't care. They are attached to being called, not what name you use.
Akila Grace is lovely.
Shadow is cute.
Skeeter reminds me of mosquitoes or the aliens from Fallen Sky.The only one that will know the RIGHT name is you. Do we get pictures of her? :)
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Hi Mike67, I'm liking Skeeter coz I like shortened names. Our B's registration name is Cotterpin/Sweet Child O Mine (swedish line) and the breeder called her Izzy (in honour of the Guns n Roses band member). Our B's brother is Axel. Now, I just couldn't go with Izzy as I was never much into Guns n Roses so I called her Pippi (Long-stocking - and she has lovely white stockings too). Akila reminds me of the Queen song 'she's A killer queen (Akila), gunpowder laser beam' . If your dog is called Akila Grace, then calling her from across the park might be a mouthful. Have fun finding a name and, Im sure, she'll end up with the right one! 🧡 Here's Pippi at 6 months with those stockings.
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Basenjis in my house always seem to name themselves. Call names, that is. Hoover - that is what she does. Could also have been called vacuum cleaner. Keeper - because he was the one we kept. Their dam - Trouble - was a tri and did she ever know she was special !
The registered names of all of ours is a Swahili word which describes the character or attributes of a Basenji.
Best is two syllables - for when you are calling them to you and they are playing deaf.
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I agree, dogs tend to name themselves. Regardless of what you decide to name them, a nickname may appear and become the most used name. Some of my dogs went by a shortened version of their registered names, some did not. And of course some got called very uncomplimentary things on occasion! ;-)
"In order to get along with a Basenji, you have to be at least half as smart as the dog!"
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One of our sisters is called Bintu (Swahili for daughter - Binti for calling her). The other one's official name is Elinor (Arabic for light of god). To find a short name that was connected to that, we went from Elinor to Eleonora (the European version), and from there to Lela (Spanish abbreviation for Eleonora). And a Lela she is 100%.
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My undergraduate degree was in geophysics with a minor in applied math. I name all my Basenjis after Indian mathematicians. My current Basenjis are Madhava of Sangamagrama (Madhava for short) and Bramagupta (Bramagupta for short). They do respond to their "short" names.
