Looking for a cat name nobody else at the vet has? These are 105 of our favorites from the 247 names tagged unique in the Mad Cat Cartel name book: rare words, names from the sky and the dark, names from other languages and brand new coinages.
Every name comes with what it means and the kind of cat it suits. Tap Pick a name for your cat and the Cartel chooses one for you.
Astronomers took nebula, Latin for mist or cloud, for the glowing clouds of gas and dust where many new stars are born. Cosmic and slow to settle, it hints at a cat who gathers its moods quietly all afternoon, then flares up all at once.
Each one with the note it got from the Cartel desk that approved it.
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Cat ID · 01 · Rare
Nebula
Elegant · Unique · Latin
Astronomers took nebula, Latin for mist or cloud, for the glowing clouds of gas and dust where many new stars are born. Cosmic and slow to settle, it hints at a cat who gathers its moods quietly all afternoon, then flares up all at once.
Memo from the desk of Albus Whisker
Every respectable laboratory keeps one sample that nobody fully understands, as a lesson in humility. Nebula takes that place on my bench, with a labelled cushion and no experiments scheduled.
A comet is an icy body that grows a glowing tail as it nears the sun, and its name descends from Greek kometes, long-haired. Such a name belongs to a cat who streaks the length of the flat with its tail held high and then vanishes for hours. It sounds bright and fleeting, borrowed straight from the night sky.
Memo from the desk of Albus Whisker
Comet keeps an orbit I have not yet modelled. It returns at irregular intervals, always to the kitchen, always at speed. The postgraduates call that an unpredictable period; I call it a reason to tidy the bench.
Rune descends from the Old Norse rún, secret or hidden lore, and it describes a cat who keeps its own counsel and watches the household from half-shadow. Scandinavian families have used it as a boy's name for generations, and its link to the carved letters of the old runic alphabets gives it a mysterious, storied feel.
Memo from the desk of Capo Clawzano
If you ever need something kept quiet, leave it with a cat called Rune. He has heard every conversation at my table and repeated none of it, the first rule of my department. The back room is yours whenever you want it, Rune.
Lux means light in Latin, and the word still carries a clean, bright glow. A bright cat makes the most of it, quick to be the first one at the window when the blinds go up and the first to chase a reflection across the ceiling. One short syllable, it is easy to call across a house and hard to mistake for anything else.
Memo from the desk of Albus Whisker
Lux reacts to a torch beam on the wall quicker than any sample in my data. Short, exact and impossible to misread, it is everything I ask of a label.
With roots in the Greek kosmos, meaning order and also the universe, Cosmo gives a worldly ring to a cat who spends clear nights at the skylight studying the stars. The name is an Italian variant of Cosimo, and its short, rounded form keeps that grand meaning easy and friendly.
Memo from the desk of Don Whiskerone
Cosmo sounds like a man who has seen the world and keeps quiet about most of it. I value that in a cat, and even more in an accountant.
Nimbus calls up a serene cat who keeps above household squabbles and seems to glow in lamplight. In Latin a nimbus is a rain cloud, and painters borrowed the word for the halo circling a saint's head. The word holds the storm and the halo together, weather below and light above.
Memo from the desk of Lady Purrington
If any word can carry weather, it should carry it lightly. Nimbus does, with no rumble at all. I am taking it as the name of the autumn line, and the cat may stay to hear it announced.
Concealment is built into Calypso, a name drawn from the Greek verb for hiding, and the sea nymph of the Odyssey kept Odysseus on her island of Ogygia for seven years. On a pet it reads as charming and secretive, and a cat called Calypso keeps visitors from leaving long after they meant to go.
Memo from the desk of Miss Meowlin
I have managed clients who could hold a room, but Calypso holds guests for whole evenings without one word of chatter. Her trick is a long, unhurried blink from the armrest, timed to the moment someone reaches for a coat.
An eagle in Latin, Aquila was also a Roman cognomen and the word for the eagle standard each legion carried. Expect a watchful cat that perches as high as the house allows and drops onto a moving toy without a wasted step. A northern constellation shares the name, so the sense of height stays in it.
Memo from the desk of Big Paw Tony
At the entrance, the man who spots trouble first is worth two who can lift it, and Aquila clocks every arrival from the top of the stairs. No training teaches that. It is door work done properly, and I would sign my own name under it.
A grin that lingers after the body has vanished is the famous trick of the Cheshire Cat in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The name is sly and dreamlike, a match for a cat that turns up on a high shelf without anyone seeing the climb and leaves the same way.
Memo from the desk of Lady Purrington
Cheshire leaves something behind when it goes, the way good silk keeps its scent in an empty room. The cushion beside my scarves waits for you whenever you choose to be seen.
Heathcliff is the brooding hero of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, and since 1973 it has also been the name of George Gately's scrappy comic-strip cat. Between the two, the name is moody and streetwise, and the cat behind it sulks with style and wins most fence-top disputes.
Memo from the desk of Capo Clawzano
The dog barks at every leaf that moves outside. Heathcliff watches from the far doorway and says nothing at all, exactly as I would. I confess he does silence better than I do, and silence is my entire department.
A 1990 single by the Pixies introduced Velouria, a dreamy love song whose title came from velour, the plush pile fabric. It sounds right on a cat that holds itself at a slight distance and allows a stroke only on its own terms. The soft v and long vowels keep the song's haze and the cloth's softness together.
Memo from the desk of Miss Meowlin
You arrive with a name people could almost wear, which saves my staff hours of explaining. Captions write themselves around it. As far as my press team is concerned, Velouria may open any evening I organise.
Marble pictures a tabby cat whose coat swirls in the bold, looping bands of the classic pattern, also called marbled, and who stays as cool and aloof as a statue when guests fuss. The word reaches back through Latin marmor to Greek marmaros, gleaming stone, lending the name a polished, sculptural calm.
Memo from the desk of Purrcetti
The leopard print on my office sofa ruled alone for a decade. Then Marble began napping on it, and now two prints share one sofa in tense silence. Our next run will be marbled, not spotted, and the crew will rework the schedule to fit.
The Greek ekleipsis, a failing or abandonment, gave English eclipse, the moment one body in the sky hides another. It feels dramatic and celestial, a brief darkness at noon that stops people mid-sentence. Here it marks a black cat who blocks the light by settling across an open book or a laptop screen.
Latin sol is the sun, and solaris means belonging to it, which English kept in solar. Solaria recasts that adjective as a feminine given name, a radiant modern coinage. The cat for it is warm-natured and sociable, drawing the household around her the way planets keep to a star.
Latin nebula, mist, became the astronomer's word for a glowing cloud of gas and dust among the stars, and Nebellio, coined from that root, gives a dreamy cat with wide, faraway eyes something cosmic to answer to. The -ellio ending is decoration, Italian in feel, and keeps the science soft.
Oriont is a coined blend of Orion, a hunter in Greek myth set among the stars, and Oriental, the long-bodied cat breed developed from Siamese lines. The mix gives a starry, athletic coinage with a hunter's edge. Half star chart and half pedigree, it sounds grand without sounding stiff.
Starwhisp names the cat that flashes along an unlit hallway, eyes lit, and vanishes ahead of your pointing finger. Star is plain enough, and whisp is an irregular way of writing wisp, a faint trail of cloud. Between them they trace the brief streak of a shooting star, a fresh invention with a fleeting mood.
A spark, Old English spearca, is the glowing fleck thrown off by burning wood or hot iron. As a name it feels bright and quick, suited to a clever cat who works out door handles before anyone expects it. English once used spark for a showy young man too, so the word has long described people with fire in them.
Lumaris names a calm cat who watches water, from the fish tank to the dripping tap, with a harbour watchman's patience. It joins the Latin lumen, light, to maris, of the sea, as in Stella Maris, star of the sea. The coinage therefore reads as light of the sea, steady and guiding.
Lumaria pairs lumen, the Latin light, with the -aria of the operatic solo, and it belongs to a cat who lifts her head whenever a lamp comes on. Read together, the coinage becomes a light that sings, luminous with a theatrical edge.
Close to lumen, the Latin word for light, Lumiya has a luminous sound. It conjures a watchful cat who keeps to quiet corners by day and wakes up in the lamplight after dark. Star Wars fans know Lumiya as a Dark Lady of the Sith in the Legends stories, a shadowy edge under the glow.
Haze is a soft veil of mist or smoke, a dreamy name for a slow-blinking cat who seems half asleep even when fully alert. Fans of one famously mellow green plant also know Haze as among its best-loved family names.
Two motions live in the word drift, the lazy float of something on a current and the controlled sideways slide of a car through a corner, for a cat who wanders the house half asleep or skids round the hall at a gallop. Drifting as a motorsport grew up on the mountain roads of Japan, lending the name a cool, street-racing edge.
Daoriel joins dao, the Thai word for star, to the -iel that closes Gabriel and other angels' names, and it calls up a serene cat who keeps restless sleepers company at night. The two halves come from different languages and alphabets, so the whole is plainly invented. Spoken, it falls into three soft syllables, closer to a character in a fable than to anyone on a class register.
Nimbora borrows the Latin root of nimbus and finishes it with -ora, the bright ending of Aurora and Flora. The cat it pictures is changeable, all sunshine on the windowsill one minute and thunder when a door is shut on it the next. That ending lightens the weather underneath, so the whole word sounds like sun breaking through.
Phoebe means bright, the name of a Titaness who in one telling handed the oracle at Delphi to her grandson Apollo, and Roman poets later borrowed it for the moon. Adding Starclaw gives her a superhero alias, given name first and code name second, and the cat is a show-off who swipes at anything that glitters.
Group 02 · 12 names
Moon names
Luna in Latin and Italian, yue in Chinese, tsuki in Japanese. Every one a moon.
Luna, the moon in Latin and Italian, takes a masculine -o in Lunaro, a coinage with the ring of a night watchman's title. The cat behind it does his own rounds after dark, exploring the hall and the stairs while everyone sleeps.
Lunellio puts the Italian diminutive -ello on luna, Italian for moon, and ends on an -io that lets the invention pass as a boy's name. The cat for it is a nocturnal prowler who saves the serious exploring for the hours after the lamps go off.
Romans and modern Italians alike call the moon luna, and Lunessa softens it with -essa for a cat whose evenings start when the curtains close. The coinage is soft and silvery, with none of the grandeur of a goddess name.
Luneth takes the Roman moon, luna, and adds the -eth heard at the end of Elizabeth, a natural match for a night-roaming cat with a taste for adventure. Gamers will also know it as the young hero of the Final Fantasy III remake, so it reads as both lunar and adventurous.
Lunoria builds on the Roman luna with the -oria ending of Gloria and Victoria. Its sound is hushed and nocturnal, and the cat in question keeps out of sight all day and reappears on the sill once the moon is up. Because Gloria and Victoria are real names, the invented Lunoria passes for a real first name rather than a word.
Lunmei pairs lun, a clipped luna and so a moon, with mei, Chinese for beautiful, and suits a gentle cat who climbs to the windowsill each evening to look at the sky. The mix of languages is invented, and the short, bouncy sound keeps it cute rather than solemn.
Moonlace pairs moon with lace, the openwork fabric of looped and twisted thread, for a cat whose markings seem patterned by night light. Lace curtains are the image most people see first, pale light coming through a fine pattern. The compound is new, yet both parts are everyday English, which keeps it gentle.
Moonwhisper puts moon beside whisper, two soft English words that make a compound for hushed voices after dark. The cat answering to it talks in breathy chirps and murmurs at night instead of making loud demands.
Tsukari opens on tsuki, the Japanese word for moon, and closes on a soft -ri, an invented pairing and not a traditional name, calm and nocturnal in feel. A cat who wakes as the moon rises and patrols the garden wall by night will answer to it happily.
Yuelara combines yue, the moon in Chinese, with Lara, the familiar Russian diminutive of Larisa, and the meeting of the two is entirely invented. Its cat is dreamy and slow to wake, growing livelier as the evening light fades. Both parts are easy for English speakers to say, so the moon half travels without a gloss.
Italian supplies both halves of Perluna, perla for pearl and luna for moon. The blend is invented, and it doubles the paleness, one gleam from the sea and one from the night sky. Here the cat is white and luminously calm, with a liking for the window seat after dark.
Perlune pairs French perle, pearl, with lune, moon, and the white cat it calls for glows best in the evening. The pairing is invented, though each half is a plain French noun. Read together, the two words share a pale glow, and the join is so smooth the blend sounds settled.
Group 03 · 13 names
Shadow and night names
Latin umbra and nox, ghosts and things that come back. For a cat who appears without a sound.
Greek abyssos means bottomless, and through Latin it became abyss, the word for a depth nobody has measured. The name is dark and unfathomable, and the cat called it disappears into unlit rooms and watches from places the eye cannot reach.
Umbra is Latin for shadow, and it lends quiet, serious weight to a cat in black who crosses the house in silence. In astronomy the umbra is the darkest inner part of a shadow, the zone where an eclipse is total.
Umbriel comes from Latin umbra, shadow, and the brooding cat who claims the dim corner under the stairs carries it easily. Alexander Pope gave it to a dusky, melancholy sprite in The Rape of the Lock, and astronomy later handed it to one of the large moons of Uranus.
Umbry is a soft coinage on the Latin umbra, shadow, and it belongs to a cat who keeps to the shaded side of the house and appears from under furniture without warning. Umbra is also the astronomers' word for the fully shaded core of a shadow, where an eclipse is total. The -y ending keeps it friendly, closer to a pet name than to a spell.
Obscura is Latin for dark or hidden, obscurus in its feminine form and the root of English obscure. Most people know it from the camera obscura, a darkened chamber in which a pinhole throws an image of the outside world onto a wall. In a cat it reads as secretive: the one who watches the family from unlit doorways and is rarely seen arriving.
Night-loving cats get a prince's polish from Noctis, Latin for of the night and the name of Noctis Lucis Caelum, the crown prince at the centre of the video game Final Fantasy XV. It sounds nocturnal and regal at once, secretive without being gloomy.
Noctra is made up from Latin nox, genitive noctis, night, and the cat behind it dozes away the daylight and begins its patrol when the household settles. The hard -ctra ending gives it a nocturnal edge without tipping into villainy.
Night in Latin is nox, and Roman poets also used the word for the goddess of night, their counterpart to the Greek Nyx. Short and almost a whisper, it closes with an x that sounds like a door clicking shut. It is a nocturnal name, and the black cat behind it dozes all afternoon and starts patrolling the hallways after midnight.
Tenebra is a real word for darkness in Latin and Italian, usually heard in the plural, and the cat it suits keeps to the unlit end of the hallway. It sounds solemn and hushed rather than menacing. Called down a dark hallway, it carries more gravity than most pet names.
Specter rests on Latin spectrum, an appearance or apparition, itself from specere, to look. It is the right word when a cat keeps a silent lookout on the landing and is gone the instant you look back. Spectre is the British spelling, and both keep the same eerie, formal tone.
Revenant, French for one who comes back, is a playfully spooky name when a cat roams for hours and always strolls home in time for supper. In folklore a revenant is the dead returning to visit the living, though here every return is entirely cheerful.
A colour and a phantom share one word in Blueghost: the blue-gray of the coat and the soundless drift of something half seen. It belongs to a cat who appears in doorways without a footstep and is elsewhere before anyone can point. Breeders call that soft gray blue, so half of Blueghost is plain, accurate description.
Fantasma is Spanish for ghost, carried over from Greek phantasma, an apparition, and here it follows el gato as an old film serial would bill its hero. The phrase reads as the ghost cat, less a pet's name than an eerie local legend. The cat it describes moves silently, is seen in a doorway and is gone before a head can turn.
Group 04 · 15 names
Unique names from other languages
Korean, Hawaiian, Norse, Turkish and more: short words with a story behind them.
Bobae is Korean for a treasure or something precious, a word borrowed long ago from Chinese. Spoken over a cat, it sounds fond rather than grand. The cat behind it is cherished, the one every person in the house quietly calls their own.
Nuri goes back to an archaic Korean term for the world, a fitting size of name for a cat that has charted every room and now wants the garden. South Korea also picked it for its first domestically developed space rocket, so it has an adventurous, far-reaching ring.
Native Korean for sound and voice, Sori names a talkative cat who comments on everything from the kettle to the doorbell. It also ends pansori, Korea's art of sung storytelling for one singer and a drummer, which gives the name some stage presence.
Korean quilting is called nubi: cotton wadding held between two layers of cloth by long, close rows of stitches. It suits a cosy cat who disappears beneath the quilt and sleeps the afternoon away in its folds. The related verb nubida also covers roaming freely all over a place, which covers the same cat's evening patrols.
Nalu means a wave or the surf in Hawaiian, and it matches a cat who rolls across the floors in sudden rushes, then subsides just as quickly. The word doubles as a verb for pondering or mulling something over, so the rhythmic name holds both the crash of the surf and the calm that follows.
In Hawaiian hale means house or home, a fitting word to give a homebody cat who considers each room its own and rarely asks to go out. In Turkey, girls are called Hale after the moon's halo, from Arabic hāla, so it crosses genders as easily as oceans.
Rock, or a flat slab of stone, is the sense of the Old Norse hallr behind Halla, and it suits a cat who seeks out cool flagstones and slate sills whenever the weather turns warm. Iceland has several hundred women named Halla, and the Faroes approve it too. Elsewhere it sounds steadfast and faintly ancient.
Birka was a Viking Age trading town on an island in Lake Mälaren, and its name probably comes from an Old Norse word for a market place. That bustling, adventurous history suits a worldly cat who trades a toy for a treat like an old merchant. In Hungarian, birka simply means sheep, a far gentler reading.
Eiri is a gentle, airy name, and the cat who carries it keeps to quiet corners and rarely raises her voice. It is a rare Norwegian girl's name of uncertain origin, and it sits very close to Eir, the Norse goddess of healing whose name means help or mercy. With no hard consonant in it, the name is easy to say softly at bedtime.
Turkish kaya means rock, while in Japanese it is the torreya tree, whose close-grained wood makes the most prized go boards. With its steady, grounded sound, the name suits an unflappable cat who naps through thunderstorms, doorbells and the hoover alike.
The koto is Japan's long plucked zither, usually fitted with thirteen strings over movable bridges. Players pluck it with picks called tsume, the same Japanese word used for nails and claws. The name is graceful but faintly mischievous, and it lands well on a cat who plucks at curtains, guitar strings and loose yarn.
Plain everyday Turkish for blue, Mavi sits easily on a cat with a smoky blue coat and a calm, unbothered gaze. Its source is an Arabic word meaning watery, and in Turkey blue is also the protective colour of the glass nazar bead believed to keep off the evil eye.
Jina is a familiar Korean women's name, and in Sanskrit jina means victor, the title Jain tradition gives to teachers who conquered their own passions. Self-mastery is the heart of it, so it honours a composed cat that never begs at the table and waits for dinner sitting perfectly upright.
Grace Lin gave the name Minli to the ten-year-old heroine of her Newbery Honor novel, a girl who leaves her poor village to change her family's fortune, and it belongs to an adventurous kitten forever eyeing the far side of the fence. In Chinese, min can mean quick or clever, which keeps the storybook name nimble.
The Thai breed name Khao Manee means white jewel, and Khao, its first half, lends a cat with a pure white coat a clean, single-word call. Used alone it is brief and gentle, one clean syllable for one clean colour.
Group 05 · 8 names
Names from books, films and legends
Cats and creatures from stories, for a cat with a reputation to live up to.
A shrewd, unimpressed cat who sizes up every visitor answers well to Crookshanks, Hermione Granger's cat in Rowling's Harry Potter novels. Shanks is an old word for legs, so Crookshanks means crooked legs, an insult that somehow sounds fond. In the story he is first to see through Scabbers, so the name brings a reputation for judgment.
Figaro is Geppetto's kitten in Disney's Pinocchio, and the name now calls up a house cat with a gift for sulking in plain view. It sounds quick and theatrical, and the moods it names tend to blow over within a minute.
Thackery Binx, the boy cursed to live as a cat in the 1993 film Hocus Pocus, guards the Sanderson sisters' old house for centuries. The name itself is short and crisp, with a loyal, slightly spooky charm. The likely bearer is a steady cat who walks the halls at dusk and stays close to the youngest people in the house.
The ram in the medieval Reynard the Fox fables is called Belin, and that Old French name gave modern French its word for a ram, bélier. It gives a storybook charm to an affectionate cat with a ram's habit of head-butting, bunting chins and shins with real conviction.
The witch-finder Matthew Hopkins recorded Pyewacket as a familiar's name in The Discovery of Witches, claiming no mortal could invent it. Moonspell adds an enchanting charm cast by moonlight, so the pair reads as a magical companion on a nocturnal errand. It belongs to a secretive cat who takes its post at the window as dusk falls.
Furion is what Warcraft III called its night elf archdruid, the character later known as Malfurion Stormrage, so the name gives a gamer's cat a forest guardian's gravity. The fur hidden inside it keeps the epic tone from taking itself too seriously.
Nightpaw follows the naming style of Erin Hunter's Warriors novels, where young cats in training carry the -paw ending until they earn a full warrior name. The night half gives it a nocturnal air, and the cat behind it is a dark figure making its rounds once everyone is asleep.
Naturalists named the spiny egg-laying echidna of Australia and New Guinea after the Greek mother of monsters, a figure who was half woman and half serpent. Between the myth and the animal, it becomes a spiky, protective name for a cat who bristles at strangers and fusses over one favourite blanket.
Group 06 · 16 names
Brand new names
Coined for the Mad Cat Cartel name book. Nobody else has these yet.
Aurum, Latin for gold, and lithos, the Greek stone behind monolith, sit together in Aurelith. The pairing has the heft of a nugget, and the name belongs on a ginger cat that settles in one spot and stays put for hours, solid and unmovable. The roots are real and the joining is new, so it carries the weight of something dug out of the ground.
Sakuriel crosses sakura, the Japanese cherry blossom, with -iel, from Hebrew el, God, the ending of Ariel and Daniel, and gives a gentle cat with an open face an angelic, springtime name. The mix of languages is new, so it feels ornamental and freshly made.
Kagehana pairs kage, Japanese for shadow, with hana, flower, a made-up combination that conjures a bloom opening in the dark. It is meant for a black cat who hunts by stealth and turns up at your elbow without warning. Spoken, the contrast between its halves gives it a quietly dramatic, almost fairy-tale tone.
A cat that lands from a jump as quietly as a falling feather has the right lightness for Kiyohane, since kiyo means pure or clear and hane means feather or wing in Japanese. Each part turns up in Japanese names, yet this pairing is coined, and it sounds clean and airy.
Lingara is built on ling, which in Chinese can be written 铃 for a bell and 玲 for the tinkle of jade pendants, and it matches a chatty cat whose trill carries through every room. The -ara tail is invented, leaving a light, ringing coinage with a chime inside it.
Mei, which in Chinese can mean plum blossom, opens Meiyara, and the close echoes the given name Yara. The blend is invented, yet it would not look out of place in a family tree going back generations. Plum trees flower while frost is still on the ground, so the name works on a hardy cat who goes out in any weather.
Haneora joins haneul, the Korean for sky, to the -ora of Aurora, the Latin dawn, and it fits a watchful cat who is out on the balcony rail at sunrise. Sky and dawn together give the name a wide, early feel with nothing weighty anywhere in it.
Seol opens Seollal, the Korean Lunar New Year, and Seolira adds an invented -ira to make a festive coinage. The cat behind it loves a full house, weaving between the guests' feet and staying up for every late arrival.
Silva, the Latin forest, is clipped to sil- in Silmora and followed by mora, which means blackberry in Spanish and Italian. Woodland and bramble make an outdoor name, and the cat behind it vanishes into the hedges and comes back with burrs and an air of triumph. In Italian, mora also describes a dark-haired woman, so Silmora also reads as the portrait of a brunette.
Rosara is rosa, the rose in Latin, Italian and Spanish, plus an invented -ara ending that shapes it like a given name. Its cat is gracious with friends and quick to swat a stranger, every bit the rose with thorns. Called across a room, its rolled middle r gives the soft rose a slight bite.
An outdoor-loving cat who roams the garden paths all morning makes the best sense of Florara, built on flor, which means flower in Portuguese as well as Spanish. The doubled r-sound after it is decoration, and the name as a whole is a bright invention.
Velvet for touch and whisp, an old form of wisp, for movement: Velvetwhisp names a cat that feels plush under the hand and slips away as lightly as a strand of smoke. The two words are real but the compound is new, quiet and expensive on the tongue, made of texture rather than meaning.
Pearlwhisp is a white cat who drifts like a curl of pale smoke, named for pearl, with its soft lustre, and whisp, a respelling of wisp, something slight and hard to catch. Together the parts feel lustrous and fleeting, a word that is gone almost as soon as it is said.
Italian stacks diminutives for extra tenderness, so fiore, flower, becomes fiorellino, and Whisperellina hangs the girlish version of that double ending on the English whisper. The hushed, dainty result could be a ballerina's name spoken under the breath. It belongs to a soft-voiced cat whose replies come as the faintest meow.
Furiel takes the -el ending of angel names such as Gabriel and Uriel, where El means God in Hebrew, and fastens it to fur for a cat with a calm, otherworldly gaze. The ending lifts an everyday word into something like a guardian's name. Spoken quietly, it has the hush of a chapel at night.
Ravix is a coinage built for speed, clipped and fast, and the cat who carries it darts past ankles and has vanished by the time a head turns. It has the snap of an invented superhero or a racing car, modern and sharp without leaning on any older meaning.
Group 07 · 15 names
Unique and funny names
Invented words that sound exactly like what your cat is doing right now.
Scratchimus dresses the plain English scratch in -imus, the Latin superlative ending of maximus, so it reads as the greatest scratcher of them all, a title for the cat who leaves long marks on every sofa arm. Said solemnly, the mock-imperial ring could belong to a Roman senator mid-scolding.
Pawtherion reads like the scientific label for a feral variety of house cat, one who ambushes ankles from beneath the bed, because therion is Greek for wild animal and the root of fossil names like Megatherium. Putting Paw first keeps that grand Greek ending firmly domestic.
Purrgrim reworks pilgrim, a traveller on a long journey to a sacred place, by giving it a purring start. The grim left at the end adds a dry, weathered edge, as if the road has been long. It belongs to a cat that walks one slow circuit of the house every evening, pausing at the same doorways like stops on a route.
Bane, Old English bana, a slayer, survives in the plant names wolfsbane and henbane, and here it sits behind a purr. The combination is sweet and treacherous together, suggesting a cat whose contented rumble on the lap comes just before the claws sink into a knee.
Hissper is a made-up blend of hiss and whisper, a quiet warning delivered at low volume. The cat behind it rarely yowls or swats, preferring a soft, steady hiss from under a chair when a stranger's hand comes too close. The word itself comes out half hissed, so calling it at all is like passing on a secret.
Hissrick dresses a hiss in the ending of Frederick and Roderick, where the Germanic element ric meant ruler. It comes out lordly and short-tempered, a minor noble who settles every dispute with one sharp exhale. It belongs on a cat that rules the hallway by complaint, hissing at the vacuum and the post with equal authority.
Snarlix pairs a snarl with the -ix ending of the Gaulish heroes in the Asterix comics, and it names a cat who curls a lip at the vacuum and the vet carrier alike. The ending gives the growl a comic, heroic swagger, as if every grumble were a battle cry.
Vexley is vex, to irritate, dressed as a country-house surname with a polished finish. The tone is elegant and needling, for a cat who sits politely just out of reach and lets you wonder what you did wrong.
Skrinkle is a crackly invented word with the rustle of a sweet wrapper in it, and the cat who answers to it is the busy one that comes running at the sound of any packet. It borrows from crinkle and from wrinkle, stays playful, and few people can say it without grinning.
Clawthorn swaps the haw of hawthorn for a claw, keeping the thorny shrub that English farmers have long planted as hedges along field boundaries. It sounds prickly and stubborn, right for a cat that polices the garden wall and swipes at any paw that crosses it. On an envelope, the name would read like the surname of an old country family.
Android and humanoid lend their -oid ending, meaning resembling, to the gremlin in Gremlinoid. Put together, it could be a creature catalogued in a science-fiction manual, half imp and half machine. It is the name for a cat that paws at the laptop until the screen goes dark and sits on the router whenever the signal drops.
Puffestan borrows -stan, the Persian suffix for land or place of, heard in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Golestan, the rose garden. Here the territory is the cat itself, a whole country of fluff that takes over the sofa and defends its borders against whoever sits too close. Said as a place name, it gives the household a map reference for wherever the fur has settled today.
Catrmellion can be read as three words in one, with cat at the front, a squeezed caramel in the middle and lion at the end, so it rolls out with royal pomp. The name belongs on a regal cat with a sweet streak, the household lion who still begs for attention.
Comrade first meant one who shares a room, from Spanish camarada, a chamber mate, and Snorbo is an invented name built on snore and a comic -bo ending. Together they name a sleepy, sociable cat that shares any bed going and snores beside its companion without apology.
Adrenopurr sets the adrenaline rush beside a purr, so the name swings from alarm to calm in one word. The cat in question races through the hallway for five minutes, then settles on a lap and rumbles as if the sprint never happened. Adreno- is the prefix medicine uses for the adrenal glands, and that lends the cosy ending a clinical ring.
All unique cat names, A to Z
Open the full list, A to Z. Tap any name to read what it means and issue its passport.
A name you will not hear twice at the vet. Rare words like Nimbus, Aquila and Rune work well, and so do short words from other languages, like Nuri or Nalu. If you want something nobody else has, try one of the new coinages on this page.
Are these real names?
Some are real words and names from other languages, some come from books and films, and some are brand new coinages made for the Mad Cat Cartel name book. The meaning on each card tells you which.
How do I pick a unique name that is still easy to call?
Say it out loud ten times. Names of two syllables with a clear first sound are the easiest to call, and a cat learns them faster. Rune, Nebula and Comet are unusual and still easy to shout across a garden.
Do cats really recognize their names?
Yes. A 2019 study from the University of Tokyo, published in Scientific Reports, found that pet cats can tell their own name apart from similar sounding words. Whether your cat comes when you call is another matter.
How many unique cat names are there?
The Mad Cat Cartel name book has 247 names tagged unique. This page shows 105 of our favorites. Open the A to Z list to see every one.
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Form MCC-1
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Tell the Cartel about your cat in two questions. It picks from more than 4,500 names and issues a passport with what the name means.
Astronomers took nebula, Latin for mist or cloud, for the glowing clouds of gas and dust where many new stars are born. Cosmic and slow to settle, it hints at a cat who gathers its moods quietly all afternoon, then flares up all at once.
Clawzano
Don Whiskerone
Lady Purrington
Miss Meowlin
Big Tony
Purrcetti
