The best part about working at a luxury cat hotel is hosting kitties. Like snowflakes, there are no two kitties exactly alike. The second best part about working at a luxury cat hotel is the names of our kitty cat guests and the stories behind them.

The poet T.S. Eliot, whose poems were the inspiration for the Broadway musical Cats, was absolutely right. The naming of cats is ineffable.

And effable.

And inscrutable.

The first cat name

Scientists have recently learned that wild cats were domesticated 10,000+ years ago based on genetic research. In 2004, archeologists unearthed a site at Cyprus in which they learned that a human, a cat and valuables had deliberately been buried together around 9,500 years ago. Essentially, cats transformed themselves from wild cats to domestic cats in pursuit of rodents that invaded grain stores. They literally befriended humans for good grub.

According to the Guiness Book of World Records, the first recorded cat to have a name was called Nedjem meaning “sweet” or “pleasant.” This was back in the reign of Thutmose II (1479-1479 B.C.) in Egypt. Historians say that back in ancient Egypt, it was uncommon to name cats.

Seriously? I call catnip on that.

Are we really to believe that people who chose to be buried with their cats didn’t bother to name them? We’re talking about a society that dedicated entire cemeteries to kitties which they mummified! Cats were worshipped back then. It was literally a crime punishable by death to kill a cat in Egypt!

Besides, they had to call them something.

What’s in a (cat) name?

Shakespeare’s fictional character Juliet may be right. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. But at Club Cat, the names our customers give their kitties are not random, meaningless gestures. Rather, they are often the result of creativity, passion, love, and intentional forethought. Whether kitty is named after food, characters, alcohol, celebrities, geography, nature, religion, puns, affluence, language, leaders, culture, or you name it (see what I did there?), we are thoroughly entertained on a daily basis.

Hundreds of kitties have stayed with us since we opened in 2019. Here are a smattering of the many names that have amused us in the last four years (in no PURRticular order):

Pico de Gato

Frankie Peaches

Two Face

Short Stack

P. Kitty

Uncle George

Flat Stanley

Storm Pooper

Darth Kitty

Elvis Presley

Bruce Wayne

Wednesday Adams

Lady Bug Alani

Radagast

Casper Opal

Beauregard

Lil Lbron

Kiki Fedora

Chili Cha Cha

Kalishnikov

Poopie

D’Artagnan

Bo Peep

Calamity Jane

Pyewacket

Cat names only

Behavioral Scientists have recently concluded that cats recognize their own names. This is not surprising given their high intelligence level. Research also shows that they are more likely to respond prominently to their name when their parent is addressing them.

Unsurprisingly, unlike dogs, cats don’t always respond to their name. Even when their doting human is calling them.

Frustrating? Kinda. Deal breaker? Not even close. Especially if your kitty is food motivated like mine are. (A topic for another blog post.)

At the end of the day, the late comedian W.C. Fields sums it up well: “It ain’t what they call you, it’s what you answer to.”

 

Cover photo by Julia Barrantes on Pexels