Thank goodness I am not called Sootysnout!

Dear George,
My name is Tilly. A sensible and pleasant name, really, compared with some. But I know a Woodstock, a Camberwell, a Salisbury, a Quinine, a Cadbury, a Didcot, a Treacle, a Splash, a Gene, and even a Jezibel (which sounds rather fun). Why do humans choose these odd names? Admittedly there are lots of nice ordinary names like Sam, Ben, Chloe, Sacha, Daisy and Rosie. But why Didcot, almost the ugliest town in Britain? You might as well call a cat Carterton, undoubtedly the ugliest town in the UK. Just because it was born there? Not a very good reason, I think.
Coat colour seems to bring out naming in humans - Blackie, Sooty, Snowy, Smudge, Dusty, Ginger and so forth. Even the occasional feline, rather than canine, Spot. Perhaps I was lucky not to be called Blacknose or Sootysnout or just Nosey (which I am because I like to keep tabs on my humans). You can't rely on human intelligence, such as it is which is very limited indeed.
Yours, Tilly.

Dear Tilly,
I like my name George. Short so that my dumb human can use it easily. Manly too, which is rather a comfort in view of the snip I had earlier. Brave like my namesake saint who tackled dragons (I'd love to have a crack at a very very small one without fire breathing). We black cats, that are thought lucky in Britain but unlucky in the USA, need all the help we can get from a name. Why are we never called romantic names like Bagheera, like the black panther in Kipling's Mowgli stories, or just Panther, or why not Obama or Cleopatra?
Rescue centres could do so much more in the way of naming us. They often don't even think what a name can do for a cat. Give a cat a bad name and it will never be adapted. I mean "Purring Perly" (for a cat already named Perly) is so much nicer than "Piddles Perly" which I once saw. Other inventive possibilities, without changing the original name just adding to it, are"Playful Perly" or even "Perly the Purring King" or "Perly the Pearly Queen". These might catch the eye and they say something attractive about the cat.
One Rescue centre I know used to have too many black cats, so they photographed one totally black cat which had a good story for the press, named it Max and then as the adoption requests flooded in renamed ALL their black cats Max and homed them that way. Each adopter thought they were getting the original Max. Did that matter? Not at all. Most would be renamed anyway.
The truth is that names for cats show more about humans than about cats. And do we know our names? We do. But we ignore them if they are being used to call us in from the twilight hunting area or used as a rebuke when we have found an open butter dish.
Love George, Would-be Dragon Slayer.
PS. This idea of hunting dragons has sort of stuck in my mind.... small, wriggly and reptilian. Very tempting. Perhaps Oscar Snuggles would email me off the blog to tell me about his lizard techniques for my next blog. Then we could all look out for little dragons.
PPS. Blog a bit early this week as my secretary won't be doing it on Saturday.