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Naming my Basenji

Basenji Talk
  • DebraDownSouthD

    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? :)

    Debra

    3
  • M

    I'll do photos soon on here. For some reason, sometimes I can't share photos th my clipboard then paste. I'll have to go to my laptop.

    1
  • D

    Just personal but Akila Grace seems elegant and quite wonderful. Gets all of my votes.

    3
  • PippiP

    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.
    0_1542516718833_fullsizeoutput_21d4.jpeg

    2
  • KembeK

    Your basenji is beautiful!

    0
  • ZandeZ

    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.

    Sally Wallis

    Zande Basenjis

    www.zandebasenjis.com

    https://pedigrees.zandebasenjis.com

    SKYPE zandeuk

    5
  • eeeefarmE

    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!"

    4
  • ZandeZ

    @eeeefarm said in Naming my Basenji:

    some got called very uncomplimentary things on occasion!

    Yeah ! But I didn't mention those ! (People might wonder what the Bs had been doing to deserve such names !)

    Sally Wallis

    Zande Basenjis

    www.zandebasenjis.com

    https://pedigrees.zandebasenjis.com

    SKYPE zandeuk

    0
  • K

    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%.

    1
  • S

    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.

    0

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    Where I am it costs about $2K+ for a dog from a breeder for just about any breed. Goldens may be less because the litters are so large. That may seem like a lot, but, as Debra mentions, dogs cost money to care for. After vet bills and boarding fees and food, it matters little what the dog cost to acquire. Leaving true puppy mills out of the discussion, given the costs of being a responsible breeder -- testing, vet bills, feeding -- and how much work breeding is, I can't imagine anyone doing it for the money. That leads to two problems for people looking for dogs. One is that since breeding isn't really lucrative, there aren't a ton of breeders, which means the supply of pups is low. Second is that most Basenji breeders want to place their pups in the best possible homes -- remember they aren't doing it for the money -- which means they're looking for people who have had Basenjis before. Something of a Catch-22.
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    Changing a basenji's name??

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