Dog names

A dog's name is the cue you'll say more than any other word for the next decade or more, usually outdoors, often at volume, and frequently while the dog is thinking about something far more interesting. That's a demanding job for two syllables, and it's why the names that work share a shape rather than a style.

The list below is a slice of the catalogue — every entry tagged for dogs, drawn across mythology, world languages, food, nature and screen. For the full 3,229, use the name quiz, which lets you stack gender, personality, cultural origin, syllable count and sound character until the list is short enough to argue over.

What makes a good dog name

• One or two syllables, with a hard consonant at the front — K, T, P, D, B and hard C cut through wind and traffic.
• A vowel ending, ideally a rising one, so the name carries when you stretch it across a field.
• Nothing that rhymes with no, sit, stay or come. This is the mistake that costs months.

There's a longer version of this in the guide to How to name your dog, including the tests worth running before you commit to anything.

72 names, with what they mean

A cross-section of the 3,229 names tagged for dog, picked to span mythology, world languages, nature, food and screen. Every one of them, and 3,157 more, is filterable in the name quiz.

Keep looking

Stack filters in the name quiz — gender, personality, cultural origin, syllable count, sound — or start from a theme. Names for other animals:

• Cat names
• Bird names
• Fish names
• Small pet names
• Reptile names
• Amphibian names
• Farm animal names