Medieval Pet Names

People in the Middle Ages kept dogs, cats, birds, monkeys and many other kinds of animals, showed them affection and gave names to their pets.

In England dogs were  given such names as Sturdy, Whitefoot, Hardy, Jakke, Bo and Terri. Anne Boleyn, one of the wives of King Henry VIII, had a dog named Purkoy,  from the French ‘pourquoi’ because it was very inquisitive.

Domestic cats were known as Gyb – the short form of of Gilbert – and that name was also popular for individual pet cats. Meanwhile in France they were called Tibers or Tibert was generic name fo domestic cat in France – Tibert the Cat was one of the characters in the Reynard the Fox animal fables.
Other names for cats included Mite, who prowled around Beaulieu Abbey in the 13th century, and Belaud, a grey cat belonging to Joachim du Bellay in the 16th century. Isabella d’Este also owned a cat named Martino. Old Irish legal texts refer to several individual cats and names them: Meone (little meow); Cruibne (little paws); Breone (little flame, perhaps an orange cat), and Glas nenta (nettle grey). An Irish poem from the ninth century describes how a monk owned a cat named Pangur Bán, which meant ‘fuller white’.

Medieval Pet Names
Via Kottke