The Naming of Cats

Hello everyone. Tilly and Toby's beans here. Sorry not to have blogged in so long but things have been very busy here.

Let's talk about kitty names. We know that many kitties have several names, some even that their beans are reluctant to admit. At the risk of a visit by the men in the white jackets and a long, involuntary stay in a room with padded walls ($156 per day, crayons included), we are going to reveal all the names we've had for our kitties over the years and the reasons behind them. Maybe others will share as well.

Let's start with Tilly, the oldest. Tilly's main name is short for Attila the Cat. She soon got a last name, too -- Wilkins. Why? We don't know. She just looked like a Tilly Wilkins and the names sound good together.

As she grew up from kittenhood and added a few pounds, we started calling her Pudgy Fat Tilly Cat or sometimes Suet Ball. Tilly won't sit still on your lap -- she keeps pestering for constant head-skritches -- so we've also called her Tilly Wiggles and Agit-Cat.

Tilly Wiggles soon became Tiggly Wiggly and Tiggly Wiggly Dee. During an unfortunate bout with fleas in her youth she was known as Tiggly Wiggly Flea.

Now that Tilly is old and thinning with age, we call her Little Old Tilly Cat. That comes out sounding like Li'l Ol' Tilly or just Lilo.

That's quite a few names for one ginger cat. But Toby has a lot of names, too.

We don't know how we came up with Toby initially. When we adopted him as a stray tiger-stripey kitten, he looked like a Toby -- Toby Tigger. But that was just the first of many names.

We soon found Toby is a curious cat who loves to poke his nose in where it doesn't belong. That led his English grandma to call him a "Nosy Parker", which is something they call nosy people in England, we guess. So now Toby became Toby N. Parker.

Leave a plastic grocery bag on the floor and Toby will root around in it to see what's inside. That led to a new nickname -- Mr. Rooterman. That sounds vaguely Germanic, so we started saying it with a heavy German accent. It became, briefly, Manfred von Rooterman.

When he was covered with mats and had a hutchy (smelling like a rabbit hutch) backside from improper cleaning, he earned yet another name. Matted, hutchy -- Matt Hutchinson. Sounds like an action hero in the movies.

Because of his size, Toby has also been called Biggie, Mr. Biggie, Biggles, Biggles of the RAF and Biggie Boy.

Lately, we've been calling him Tig -- short for Tigger. Toby doesn't care what we call him, as long as we don't call him late for supper.

So that's the full truth about us and cat names. We hope this full confession will lead other beans to do the same. Remember: Admitting a problem is the first step toward recovery.

Yes, we are nuts. But any attempt at involuntary committal will be resisted to the fullest extent of the law.