What would you name yourself???

A story in last week’s Albuquerque Journal prompted me to think about why humans feel the need to give animals names.

The story involved a litter of pups born to a Mexican gray wolf who became famous for her wandering all over New Mexico, apparently in search of a mate and unaware that she had traveled out of what was her permitted range. The wolf, given the official code as F2996, was given the human name of “Asha.” Initially released in the Gila country of Southwestern New Mexico, Asha was finally captured near the Valle Caldera National Preserve west of Los Alamos. Once captured, she was returned to the Sevilleta wildlife sanctuary near Socorro and found love with another Mexican gray wolf (M1966), also given a human name of Arcadia.

The five surviving pups born to the famous canine couple have been given names suggested by school children from New Mexico and Arizona. Their names are Kachina, Aspen, Kai, Sage and Aala. The Journal article says the names “recall southwestern flora, Hopi folk spirits and the Dine’ (Navajo) language.

This story reminded me of a recent incident involving my granddaughter and some friends who stumbled upon a litter of possum babies in the backyard of a girl who was celebrating her birthday in Austin. The birthday party, which had been carefully planned by the birthday girl and her mother, was completely discombobulated with the excitement surrounding discovery of the possum babies. The girls — around 10 years of age — immediately felt the need to give each of the possum babies names.

They decided on “Snickers,” “Twix” and “Hershey,” all a chocolate-flavored candy bar themed selections.

The possums were eventually turned over to animal control and I assume are now roaming free somewhere on the north side of Austin.

My granddaughter also launched into animal naming mode last year when I managed to capture a ground squirrel that had been living in a woodpile in our back yard and annoying our dog Chester. Within seconds of showing our granddaughter the captured squirrel in its humane trap, she announced its name would be “Chestnut.” We soon released Chestnut into a nearby pecan orchard, where I assume it found plenty of nuts to eat while it pondered why it had been given its name.

This brings me to our dog Chester. We picked his name because I had read that dogs seem to respond better to names with sharper sounding consonants. And it didn’t hurt that in my wife’s family, there was a great grandfather whose name was Chester.

Chester seems to fit his name but I’ve also wondered — as has been pondered by others — what he decided to name me.

I think it might be: “tall animal who only uses two of its four appendages to move around, occasionally gives me snacks that taste much better than that gravel-flavored stuff he leaves for me to eat in a bowl on the floor, doesn’t seem to understand that playing means having him chase me around endlessly after I catch a ball he has thrown me, sometimes lets me ride in a large box on wheels where I can stick my head outside as air filled with a smorgasbord of scents rushes by and flaps my ears, and is constantly babbling some kind of gibberish that he thinks I should understand.”

In dog language, it comes out as: “Grrrumph?” It’s a muffled sound you can’t ignore for long and always ends with what sounds like a question (As in: “Are you paying attention?”) He only seems to use my name in the middle of the night when he realizes he should have peed or pooped before going to bed and then stands next to my bed and repeats it until I finally acknowledge his presence and grant him his wish.