Origins of pet names

Pets are everything to us. They’re our family, our children, our best friends. For many at Urbana a unique name is a way to show their unique love.

This is Django. “My mom’s boyfriend named him after the movie Django Unchained,¨ said junior Jordyn LeNoir.

This is Nicco. “He is a Greek god, but we decided to put extra C’s!” explained junior Kaelyn Payan.

This is Juniper. “She was my 16th birthday present, and I found her name after looking up trees from her native land which is Madagascar. A juniper tree is one of the trees from there! It also is a color which is like a dark green which is what color she is,” said Isabella Wallis, senior.

This is Ollie. “I named him because we couldn’t figure out a name for him just yet, and we googled boy names for bunnies and that was one that we found that we thought fit him very well,” said Brianna Manuel, junior. And that’s not all for the Manuel household!

This is Bonnie. “Originally, I was going to give her name for my other bunny who passed away in May, but we ended up going with Nova. When we got Bonnie, we once again didn’t know what to name her. [I remembered] Bonnie because it was on our previous list and when we heard it, we just thought…it was perfect for her,” explained Manuel.

This is Tia. “When I was a child, I used to be obsessed with the movie Princess and the Frog. I used to look up to Princess Tiana, so I just shortened it to have a unique way of it,” said junior Raimoni Bradford.

This is Appa. “I got him during the pandemic. I didn’t know what I wanted to name him; the names I thought that would be nice for him were Tv Turtle characters. Since we had so much time on our hands, I watched more movies and tv shows. The Last Airbender was one of them, and watching it, I quickly began liking the flying bison whose name is also Appa. Then it clicked! That’s his name. It’s perfect!” said senior Catelyn Johnson.