Naming Names

DOWN THE ROAD A PIECE

By Jane D. Brown
Columnist

We recently adopted a trio of mature hens from a friend who was moving to a less chicken-friendly place. We named  them Coffee, Latte and Cocoa, primarily because of their colors and in honor of two of our former chickens. The grandchildren also weren’t so keen on these new chickens keeping their birth names: Popeye, Bojangles and Chickie, for obvious reasons.

Our two veteran hens are named Chick and Chuck. My husband thought that would be fun because I can call them for treats like this: “Chick, chiiick, chiiiick, Chuck!” Recently a TSA guard saw the picture of Chuck on my screen saver and when I explained her name by doing the call, even the guard cracked a smile.

Chick and Chuck, the two veteran hens, and former Cocoa in the back. (Photo by Jane Brown)

When you grow up on a farm, naming your many animals can be a bit of a chore and sometimes you end up with run-of-the-mill names like Susie, the big Newfoundland dog whose son we named Tommy. Our third Newfie got a better name: Mighty Manford.

Turns out our feisty, scrawny bantam rooster named Butterball was a better guard dog than any of our canines. His favorite roost was on top of Tommy’s big head as he lay on our front porch. From that perch Butterball was the first to see visitors. My father finally had to erect a sign, “Beware the rooster!” after a couple of aggressive Butterball greetings kept folks trembling in their cars in the driveway.

I named my haughty pet goose Kathleen after my brother’s snooty girlfriend with the fake British accent.

My Mom was the best animal namer. Our first lamb she dubbed AliBaBa. But our second she named Lambchops, with forethought about where his life was headed. We stopped naming our lambs after that.

Alibaba, the lamb, and Judy Brown, September 1961. (Brown family collection)

One summer I entered a contest sponsored by our local Herr’s potato chip factory. They had a surplus of Shetland ponies that had been all the rage a few years earlier. I bought little bags of potato chips for 15 cents each and entered five times in my name and then generously entered my twin sister’s name another five times.

My sister won one of the ponies! I was upset that she didn’t think she needed to share the pony with me, but that’s how it was. Mom named the tiny horse Herr (Mr. in German) Chips. We called him Mister Chips. Perfect.

We eventually got a full-sized Palomino horse. He became King Palo. We called him King because he knew a whole lot more about what a horse needed than we did. We learned together how to ride, jump and have fun together. 

One time we had a goat named Bell. Her claim to fame was that she was the first goat artificially inseminated in the state of Maryland. Bell had twin kids. Mom named them Ding and Dong, of course.

Jane D. Brown taught in the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media for 35 years and has lived in Chapel Hill since 1977. This reporter can be reached at Information@TheLocalReporter.press