Pet Naming Practices in Turkey: Cats vs. Dogs

Pet-naming practices reflect the attitudes of pet owners towards their pets and their place in their lives and society. In the US and other western countries, pet animals are often given names that are commonly used for humans. This trend is frequently considered an endorsement of family membership granted to pet animals. In this study, cat and dog names reported by Turkish-speaking cat and dog owners were examined; and the proportion of human vs. non-human, as well as foreign vs. domestic names were investigated. It was observed that cats were more likely to be given human names than dogs. Cats also received more traditional Turkish names, while dogs were more likely to be given foreign or more modern human names. The results are evaluated in relation to the status of pet dogs in the modernization and secularism of modern Turkey. Historically, dogs were granted limited access to homes because of their ritually impure status in Islam. With the modernization and westernization trends, however, having a dog as a pet became a symbol of modernity. The differential pet-naming trends reported in the present study complement such observations regarding the status of cats vs. dogs in modern Turkey.