Whats the deal with giving your snakes names?

[Invisible Snake]

Hi, I have a few snakes and not once have I thought about naming them. Why do people name their snakes? especially when they don't acknowledge their names or respond to verbal commands.

Do people give their snakes names to help with record keeping? (health, breeding)

I'm just curious and have nothing against people who give their snakes names.
any input is appreciated, thanks.

[EasternGirl]

I am not quite sure how to answer this. Many of us think of our snakes as pets...we care for them...they aren't just for breeding or selling. My snakes might not respond to verbal commands or respond the way that dogs and cats respond..but I feel that they do interact with me. For example, my snake Cee Cee knows me...she knows the vibration of my voice as compared to other voices...she knows my face compared to other people. If I go to her enclosure and call to her...she actually responds to the sound of my voice. Now, I am aware that snakes can not hear like we do...so she is probably responding to vibration and not sound...but she is responding to me. If someone else does that, she hides. Does she know her name? No. But then again..my dog probably doesn't know his name either. He probably has just been conditioned to respond to the sound I make when I say his name. I name my snakes because I want to be able to have something to refer to when I am talking about them and because I care for them. I suppose I could call them "hey you" or "snake 1" and "snake 2"...but that doesn't work for me.

[infernalis]

I simply do it for specimen identification.

When you have a lot of them, it becomes necessary to identify them somehow.

[kibakiba]

I love my snakes, they are my family. I give my snakes names because you give other pets names, don't you? You get a dog, you name him rover... You don't call him "dog". It's the same with snakes.

[Light of Dae]

My snakes recognize my voice compared to friends voices.

[Light of Dae]

...You don't call him "dog".

I did know a guy who called a cat, Dog....

[Didymus20X6]

Are you sure he wasn't just using hip-hop slang? As in, "Yo dog! Sup?"

[Light of Dae]

lol no.. he even had a collar with a cat tag custom made with the name 'Dog' on the cat. It was a cool cat... Dog.

[InsanePirateDragon]

Thats sort of how I named one of my betta fish Piranha... And I've had someone who had a dog named Kitty. And one of the classroom pets was a Tarantula named Bob. Names sometimes helps connect more.

But yeah wouldn't feel right to not name her when everyone else has a name.

Plus what I don't get is why people give them names like Squeeze and Venom personally. I always felt that it played on people's fear of snakes.

[Stefan-A]

Hi, I have a few snakes and not once have I thought about naming them. Why do people name their snakes? especially when they don't acknowledge their names or respond to verbal commands.

Do people give their snakes names to help with record keeping? (health, breeding)

I'm just curious and have nothing against people who give their snakes names.
any input is appreciated, thanks.
Naming an animal will probably create a stronger (one-way) bond with it and probably makes the owner put tiny bit more effort into making sure the animal is getting proper care.

I don't name my animals. I can identify them all quite easily. The only ones I give any sort of name to, are the solo-housed babies and that's just for record keeping (feeding, shedding, other issues).

[kimbosaur]

People have definitely named weirder things than snakes on this planet.

[EasternGirl]

yeah...we name hurricanes...what's up with that?

[kibakiba]

Hurricanes can be pets too! How dare you say anything against those who love their wittle hurricanes! :(


:p

[gregmonsta]

My car is called accapella ... :rolleyes:

[Stefan-A]

My car is called accapella ... :rolleyes:
Mine is called Wife. It uses up all my money and drives me nuts.

[guidofatherof5]

Mine is Das Boot.

[chris-uk]

We name our snakes because they are pets, and pets have names. Without naming them if I wanted to talk to the wife about one of them it would be a case of referring to "the female Cuitzeo", as opposed to just "Lacci", or "the female albino checkered" as opposed to just "Binky". It's a shorthand, but it's also an emotional attachment to our pets.
I know that other people who collect lots of snakes don't name them all, but the wife and I agreed that we'd not get so many that we couldn't treat them as individuals, so they all get names.

All our snakes are named after characters in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. :)

[Didymus20X6]

Naming is something we human beings do. There is significance to it. It's a way of saying, "This is mine!", both to ourselves and to others, and, in a way, to the very thing we have just named. It both creates an emotional attachment and is an extension of that emotional attachment.

[EasternGirl]

I had a car that I called Renfield because it seemed to eat bugs...bugs would go into the car and never come back out. My son names everything "Bob". He has numerous stuffed animals named Bob, and he had a fish named Bob, and he told me he wants to name all of his children Bob. If it were up to him...I would have four snakes named Bob.

[infernalis]

yeah...we name hurricanes...what's up with that?

Scotland got hit with one called "Bawbag" (Look it up)

[Didymus20X6]

Sounds like something you'd hear on Family Guy.

[EasternGirl]

I knew I had heard that before...nice...they named a hurricane that? Seriously? You're joking...

[katach]

They are our pets. We love them. They each have their own individual personalities, therefore they each have their own name. It's just like naming a fish, cat, dog, or hamster.

[Didymus20X6]

The only reason I wouldn't name an animal is if I was planning on cooking and eating it.

[Bear-Cat]

We name all of our pets, including our fish. So why not something as interactive as a garter snake? Though we have themes for naming our pets.

[infernalis]

I knew I had heard that before...nice...they named a hurricane that? Seriously? You're joking...

not joking...

Scotland Hit By 165mph Winds As Twitter Dubs Storm 'Hurricane Bawbag' (Photos) (Video) (http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2011/12/08/scottish-winds-hurricane-bawbag_n_1136460.html)

[gregmonsta]

It was nothing .... :p .... that 'Bawbag' didn't stop me moving a mattress between flats ... didn't know what all the fuss was aboot :rolleyes:.

[Eight]

I name all my animals with the exception of my Tarantula. My first few have names but then I gave up as I couldn't possibly remember all of them. I do agree about names giving an extra emotional attachment and it benefiting the care you give the animal. All my animals get the same amount of care though.

Generally speaking I'll call any animal I have something based on how they are acting at the time. My poor cat gets called all number of things.....

[mark cope]

Well people give cats names and they can hear your voice....but they just can't be bothered to respond it:)

[Bart]

Well, when I say "Nefri" everybody knows I'm talking about this calm and beautiful corn I own, not this great but a little skiddisch boy Izy, who happened to be a garter snake, right? ;)

[harpercat]

I love my pets and simply can't imagine not giving a pet a name. It's the most natural thing in the world. Whether or not the amimal itself responds to it is immaterial, it's just part of acknowledging the pet's importance as another member of the family. Is a snake any less important than a cat or a dog? Of course not.

[EasternGirl]

I think my chihuahua is starting to think his name is "Oh for the love of God dog!" or possibly "No" :D. We did a little test run the other night and since his name is Presley, we tried calling him Parsley to see what would happen. He answers to Parsley too. Lol...

[katach]

They don't necessarily hear the name but the tone and inflections in our voice. Try calling him something completely different with the same about of syllables and using the same tone and inflections, I bet he would come to that also.

[d_virginiana]

I give my snakes (and my other animals) names primarily so other people know who I'm talking about when I want to tell stories about them. I communicate with one of my dogs using almost only clicks/growls (yeah, when we're around other people I use words, but seriously, that system worked quicker than verbally training any of the other dogs I've ever had) and body language. She's the one that goes out in the woods with me, so talking or yelling for her to come is counterproductive when we're trying to sneak up on wildlife. She knows her name, but I almost never use it.

I'm more than a little obsessed with animal behavior, so I always try to communicate with my animals in ways that they can understand and not assuming they're experiencing things the same way I am. They're still members of the family though. Even the millipede. :D


And also... Bawbag? Who's idea was that??