Hello! I'm getting a Westie soon and have been teeter-tottering on names. I like Bear, Scott, and Sable, but I feel like I should think about this more. It's a male, and he's 3 months old. Not sure if I'm allowed to post photos, since their his current owner's, but he's cute as a button. Not really a fan of object names. Any ideas?

Congratulations!! I'm not good at thinking up names, but I think it WOULD help if you could post a photo. If you're not able to then perhaps you could describe him, what color or colors, for example.

I'm not fond of the name Bear--even though I think it's cute. But it's only because I have a bad association with that name, and that's my problem, not yours.

I think Sable is cool. I always wanted to name a cat Darshan which is sort of obscure and not sure it applies at all to dogs. Cats have such different personalities. According to Wikipedia it's defined as: "a Sanskrit term used for 'visions of the divine' in Hinduism." I always thought of it (loosely) as meaning a gift. Since our pets are hugely comforting and they're gifts to us. If that DOES interest you, it's pronounced as if the second syllable rhymes with the word on as opposed to an, and the emphasis is on the 2nd syllable.

You were probably looking for something a bit less exotic, but who knows? I didn't get my first pet til I was 37 and I remember a woman telling me that cats don't really hear their entire name, so keeping it to one or two syllables is good. I'm not sure if dogs are the same. I think they hear the part of the name that has the emphasis when spoken, so an animal might hear Say if they were named Sable, but that really doesn't matter.

I think it's cool that you posted this. I wish more people had offered some ideas. Maybe they will see the post near the top after this and you'll get some ideas. Also, I don't think having THE name right away is absolutely essential. I was going to name a cat Mercury yrs ago but it just didn't roll of the tongue well. It seemed to be swallowed up and sort of trailed off, as if his name was simply Merc. I ended up calling him Max, which I know is SO common for dogs and cats but he was such a Max, it just stuck with me, lol!

I have very little experience naming pets. Two of the three cats I've had were already named when I got them and I thought it was important to keep the names they had because they knew their names already (even though they were both under 6 months old). And it's sort of funny, but they were both named by little boys (two completely different situations) so "from the mouths of babes" I had a cat named Spike who was NOT a tough guy, he was more of a spook, and I had another cat (10 yrs later) named Bunny by a seven yr old. That was cute, but funny since he was SUCH a scrappy guy and was always trying to escape the apt, but he had a Bunny personality--as sweet as could be.

OK I know this is a lot of blah blah blah, but maybe something I said was helpful. :)

It's funny, I clicked this thread thinking, "Sable would be a cute puppy name" and it was one of the names you mentioned.

Hm... I tend to lean on naming the pet when I've gotten to know them a bit better. But Sable is a cute name for sure.

I would always name a Westie "Teddy", "Ernie" or "Kira".

"Lumos" "Paxton" "Baxter" "Florins" "Chester" "Prince" "Zephyr" "Razzle" and "Orville" all came to my mind whilst browsing the Google Images results for westie. Good luck :)n

I like old man names and surnames for dogs, especially ones with dapper little beard faces. Murray, Arlo, Jones, Wallace, Percy, Gershwin, Cecil...

Westie's have so much energy. I would probably name him or her something like Spark or Sparks. Though, only you know his or her habits.