Naming Conventions

So over in Inara a lovely friend posted a link to the recent Parenting Magazine list of baby names for 2009, and it listed techniques to use to see if a name you like is a good idea or not. Stuff like being aware of nicknames or shortened versions of the name, spelling stuff with initials, that kind of thing. You wouldn't want your kid to sign a lease with his initials in the little spaces down the side spelling "BAD" or "DUMB" or something.

Anyway, it made me think of my naming conventions. Frankly, all I've had to name so far are cats, but it keeps me amused. While they all share common names such as "dumb-butt", "No!" , "not food" and "GET DOWN", they also have their own actual real names. However, it may be a good thing that only cats are involved, because I also have a horrible habit of creating nicknames.
Colin: There was something that I called him early on for nearly a year that I can't remember now. I went through a "Bubba" phase when we moved down south, but Lanse put a quick end to that. Now I call him "Bud" for no apparent reason... actually, my mouth got so used to "Bubba" I had to find something similar enough to switch to it half-way when I forgot. I also like to call him "Mister". Lanse's cousins, when they were young, called him "Collie-wallie". (They didn't visit often. ) But Colin's so... prim and proper, that I feel bad most of the time using nicknames on him.

Kira: Before we got her, she was named Princess. Since the family we got her from was my co-worker and her daughter was my student, we called her Princess Kira for a while, and I also call her Ladybug. This was because she was our only girl cat, and I wanted to call her "Lady", but I always called my college roommate "Lady" (inside joke, don't worry about it), PLUS, that college roomie picked 'little black kitten' (in French) as her livejournal handle, so it all made sense. I added the 'bug' to distinguish between them. Now I call Kira 'Sweetie' and 'Girlie' and 'Sweetie-Patweety' (though not often).

Spook: Being that he's the baby kitten of my heart, I stray the most with Spook. I am his person, so he lets me get away with more. Obviously, the easiest first thing was "Spooky", which quickly reduced to "Pooky" or "Pook". As it's not polite to reduce that to "Poo", it became "Boo". Now, sometimes he's "Boolie" or "Boodle". The other day, suddenly my mouth called him "Boodle-doodle", and it became fairly obvious that I may actually have some kind of Problem.

Maybe they shouldn't let me around real children with real names.

Though they do say admitting the problem is the first step....