A Dog Named Inigo, A Cat Named Scully... and Other Pets Named After Movie Characters

A few days ago, I asked people to speak up about the pets that they’ve named after characters from movies.

And I introduced people to my own — Jonathan “The Duke” Mardukas, named for Charles Grodin’s white collar criminal in Midnight Run.

Sure enough, I began to hear from pet owners. Not many, but some.

And if you’re now inspired to respond, feel free to post comments and link to images of your pets.

Let’s begin with the Birthday Girl… Susan Bettger.

Susan is an extraordinary travel agent, a dear friend, and a fellow veteran of The Glen Workshop.

I’ve met her cat, and I was apparently quite privileged to find myself in this feline’s favor. So I’m delighted to introduce her to Looking Closer readers.

Susan writes:

This is Scully….who you have met and bonded with. She’s a very shy kitty.  She’s named from The X-Files movie and TV show.  I didn’t name her, my nephew did, and to be honest, I mostly call her Baby-Kitty.  There used to be a Mulder cat who belonged to my niece, but his life came to an untimely end.  So sad…

Happy birthday, Susan! My best to you and your extremely discerning house-mate.

Next I heard from another friend I met at the Glen Workshop: Poet and recently retired firefighter Bob Denst.

Bob writes:

This is Inigo. Yes, as in “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”

Here he is doing what he loves to do more than anything else in the world: retrieving a stick that we have thrown into a lake.

He would do this all day, if we let him. Or if we had a lake that was closer. I’m convinced that he would do it until his exhaustion led to his drowning if we did not force him to take a break. He considers these breaks to be a form of punishment.

He continues:

It’s been amazing to see how well he does this as a behavior of the breed (Flat Coat Retriever) and how it is indistinguishable from OCD.

People who are unfamiliar with The Princess Bride think his name is Indigo even though we take pains to pronounce it correctly and explain the difference.

He is not the brightest of dogs and on many levels could barely give fungus a challenge in the intelligence department. However, he has the sweetest and most gentle of dispositions you could imagine. But now he wants you to throw his toy or kick a tennis ball so he can bring it back to you, thank you very much.

And by the way, he picked us out at the Humane Society.

But that is another story and one with the hand of God very much in evidence.

I also heard from blogger Julie Davis, who writes:

Our dogs are named after Serenity (Firefly) characters. Wash and Zoe were so named because we were looking for a married couple to name our Boxer pair after … and our family is nothing if not loyal to pop culture.

Then we picked up a little scrapper from the SPCA who has had a hard time but loves the good things in life … and what could we do but call her Kaylee?

Go ahead. Tell us about your pets, the movies that inspired their names, and link to a picture if you like.