Kitten Introduction and Name Reveal!
Plus all the names we passed on and why
Back in November my friend Quinn sent me a screenshot of a bunch of adorable kittens her friend was fostering. Chris and I had been searching for a new cat for a while but had been having trouble finding one that seemed like the right fit for us. I followed up immediately and about a week later Chris and I were proud pet parents to the prettiest little black kitty!
I had gone in open to adopting any of the cats but I was hoping we would like the little black one. I’ve been wanting an all-black cat for years (since long before adopting our beloved late cat, Béla Lugosi, who was a black and white “cow cat”) and I love that he has green eyes! Chris and I happen to both have dark hair and green eyes so I thought it would be funny if we had a cat with similar coloring, like he could be our actual son! His hair is even frizzy like mine!
I had always considered Béla to be our dapper, elderly gentleman roommate. I hadn’t adopted him until he was already twelve after all and he lived to be twenty. The entire time I knew him he was a grown ass man!
However, from the very first moment this kitten entered our lives he was BABY.
Don’t worry, we don’t actually think he is our son but he certainly is family.
He fills our house with squeaky little kitten mews and nuzzles up on our chests to shower us with cuddles.
We set up a separate bed for him but he immediately wanted to curl up and sleep in our bed with us. He was so small at first that I worried about crushing him!
As snuggly as he can be, I would say he’s only about 10% snuggly, 90% rambunctious. He is completely FEARLESS, constantly curious, and insists on participating in every activity we attempt in the house. Since I mostly work from home he is my shadow 24/7. We shower him with toys but it never seems to be enough. It is ALWAYS playtime!
Clearly we adored him from the start but it took us a fairly long time to give him a name: at least a month! I don’t know about you but I find naming very hard.
Chris and I both agreed that we wanted the name to fit his personality and that we generally prefer more dignified, human-sounding names. I had further stipulations. I felt the name should:
Be easy/fun to say
somehow reference his all black fur and/or unique texture
Be at least slightly goth-y (but also not be a common gothic cat name)
Have no common alternative spellings (I know it’s stupid but it drove me nuts that people always thought Béla was a Bella!)
Bonus points if it referenced history or pop culture. We also loved the idea of choosing another famous vampire or horror actor name as an homage to Béla.
So we set to work making lists of names and polling everyone we know!
With all of this in mind, we considered the following names:
Amadeus
Archibald/ Archie
Barnabas
Bartholomew (this was a big contender for a long time! We loved the mouth feel of the name and the added pun of “mew”)
Boris Karloff (another big contender. We thought it would be cute as a successor to Béla Lugosi. Ultimately I didn’t love that it set them up as rivals and Chris didn’t like that the name “sounds like a goon.” Actually I believe Chris’s exact words were “It’s sounds like a goon. My son is not a goon!”
Bramble (I thought this one was ADORABLE and would capture his adventurous spirit but Chris didn’t like it at all.)
Cabaret
Calcifer (Another long-time contender. I liked that the name evoked his crackly fur and Chris is a big Diana Wynne Jones fan.)
Catstopher (Okay, only I thought this one was funny)
Cat Calloway (This was actually his legal name for a couple weeks!!! Our kitty is very vocal and loves to “sing” at us. We both love the music of Cab Calloway and believe him to be under-acknowledged both as an OG goth artist and as a Baltimore artist. He is most associated with Harlem but he got his start here! Also Chris loves puns. After weeks of looking for the perfect name we had finally found one! …Or so we thought until we took him to his first vet appointment. The administration assistant and the vet kept saying things like “Here, Cat! Want a treat, Cat? You’re such a good boy, Cat!” and my heart sank. It felt like after all that work we hadn’t named him at all! Back to the drawing board….)
Catapult
Cinder
Crackle (I loved the onomatopoeic nature of this one and again, it seems to capture his spitfire spirit but it didn’t make the cut.)
Edgar (as in Allan Poe. Goth-y but slightly less obvious. We liked that it kind of just sounds like some guy’s name and we liked the Baltimore connection.)
Enoch (I really liked this one because it simultaneously references a beloved and goth-y side character in Over the Garden Wall AND every Baltimorean’s favorite free public library. But Chris was less into it and we both agreed it doesn’t have the best mouth feel.
Erebus
Fable
Giacomo (Chris just loves this name! It’s fun to say! Would denote the kitty’s adopted Italian heritage)
Giuseppe (ditto)
Gremlin (As we got to know him better and see his wild side, this one seemed more and more appropriate)
Helleborus/Helleboris (We liked the botanical reference and gothic sound but was too close to Boris, “My son is not a goon!” etc.)
Houdini (Fun to say, slightly gothy but in an unexpected way. Plus I had just done some reading on Houdini for a project and fell down a fascinating rabbit hole).
Horatio
Inkblot (I loved how much this one evoked the nature of his fur but Chris didn’t like it at all and I didn’t like the mouth feel).
Leopold (This was a major contender for both of us until our friend Maggie reminded us of King Leopold II and yeesh! Glad we dodged that bullet!)
Ludacris (This was mostly a joke but it stuck for a while. We are both fans of Ludacris both as a rapper and as an actor in perhaps our favorite action franchise of all time, The Fast Saga. I also liked that it incorporated Chris’s name. Ludacris, son of Chris! )
Mystic
November
Nosferatu (I LOVED this one! He sometimes hulks his back in this classic “scaredy cat” pose that cracks me up and reminds me so much of the classic Nosferatu from the original silent film. Chris nixed it.)
Octavius
Orville
Pickles
Ramble (Like Bramble)
Shockley/Shockleigh (We liked the sound of this in reference to his electrocuted-looking fur and we liked that it sounded like a cranky, aristocratic little lord. Then we Googled it and found out that there was a 20th century American electrical engineer and inventor named Shockley and thought that was really cool! Though just now I Googled him again and the second thing that comes up is an article titled Shockley Was a Racist and Eugenicist so I guess we dodged another bullet on that one.)
Tortellini (The first night we brought him home he found a dried tortellini on our kitchen floor and started playing with it)
Vincent Price (Probably our #1 contender for a long time! We both like the actor, the slightly unexpected gothic nature of the name, and the fact that it would continue the tradition started by Béla Lugosi. Ultimately I just didn’t like the mouth feel of “Vincent.” It’s too clipped and sharp.)
Vladimir
Names other people suggested
Like I said, we asked everyone we know for their opinion!
Many people suggested popular black cat names like “Binx,” “Salem,” “Shadow,” and “Void,” but none of these resonated with us or how we see this particular kitten.
Chris’s mom wanted us to name him “Inky” but Chris was not a fan.
My brother wanted us to name him “Luigi” because “He is full of crimes.” We declined but I will admit we do still call him this sometimes!
Finally, friend of the stack, Kyle, offered the worst suggestion of all: “CatGPT.” In retaliation for this odious tech pun we threatened to steal the name of his newborn human son, perhaps with the honorific “Better [insert son’s name].”
But in the end, only one name reigned supreme….
Wolfgang!!!
We landed on Wolfgang for several reasons. First, we had always thought baby Wolfgang looked a bit like a bear or a wolf with his unusually long face and fluffy fur collar. Second, he is very dramatic and loves to “make music” for us. If we couldn’t use Cat Calloway, the name of another musician seemed like a good bet. Finally, his hair sticks out in a very Mozart-y way. It fits!
So that’s the story of how we named Wolfgang! Here are some more photos from our first four months together. Hopefully you will find that I have paid my cat tax in full!
Janna, I love his name and I always love reading your posts. I didn't let myself skip ahead and enjoyed reading through all the names you considered- I didn't guess Wolfgang but when I got to the reveal I thought "oh yes, that's the perfect name." And Wolfie is a very cute nickname. It sounds like his personality is very similar to my cat (: The illustration you did is so sweet (love the tail L), enjoy the new addition to your family!