Five feral kittens who could not be touched without thick gloves were named Acorn, Spaghetti, ButterNut, Patty Pan and Zucchini. A year of rescue stories later, the litter names are the detail that stays with us.
Norman, Stanley, Bernard, Eugene, and Otis HenryCredit: Lori White
Nobody makes rescues do this. Litters could be numbered, and many are at intake. But somewhere between the carrier and the foster room, somebody sits down and decides these five particular kittens will be squash varieties, and from that moment they stop being a litter and start being individuals.
LoveMeow reports original cat rescue stories every day, which means we read a great many of these naming decisions. On National Cat Day, here are the best of this year, and what they are actually for.
The food rule
Food wins. It is not close.
When Sonora Cat Rescue, an all-volunteer group in Sonora, California, brought in five six-week-old kittens from a feral colony this September, they arrived unhandleable. Two days later they were a different set of animals, and the rescue's president, Sadie Anderson, had already given them a collective nickname that stuck.
"It hasn't even been 2 full days, and these spice nuggets I couldn't grab without gloves are now approaching me, leaning into scritches, and even purring," she told LoveMeow.
Spice nuggets. Acorn, Spaghetti, ButterNut, Patty Pan and Zucchini. Anderson also explained why those two days mattered so much, which is the part most people do not know. "When kittens are 5 to 8 weeks old, their personalities are very malleable," she said. "Once they get to be around 9 weeks old, that window slams shut." Five kittens came out of a colony inside that window, and five kittens got to be squash.
Read the spice nuggets' full story
Squash kittensCredit: Sonora Cat Rescue
At Merced SPCA in Merced, California, a tortoiseshell stray came in with five kittens and became Momma Muffin. Her litter was the Breakfast Bunch: Waffles, Pancake, Omelet, Biscuit and Toast.
Read Momma Muffin's full story
Momma Muffin and her kittensCredit: Merced SPCA
And at the Orphan Kitten Project at UC Davis, two bonded siblings pulled out of an overcrowded shelter were named Mahi Mahi and Mackerel, which is the only fish-themed litter we came across all year and deserves recognition for it.
Read Mahi Mahi and Mackerel's full story
Mahi Mahi and MackerelCredit: Orphan Kitten Project at UC Davis
The cheese brothers of Sandy Springs
During a TNR effort in Sandy Springs, Georgia, volunteers with Catz4life kept running into the same light orange and white female. She had a particular talent: every litter she produced came out looking exactly like her. This round she had four boys, each one a near-perfect copy.
Somebody on that team has a sense of humor, because all four went out as cheeses. Ricky is short for Ricotta and Reggie for Reggiano. Their brothers went home as Colby Jack and Monterey Jack, better known as Colby and Monty.
Getting to them was not funny at all. "They were hiding way under the crawl space of a home, and our TNR team had to crawl under there to get them," Aimee with Catz4life told LoveMeow. Their mother turned out to be smarter than the traps, slipped through, raised one more identical litter, and was eventually caught, spayed and returned to her territory.
Colby and Monty were adopted quickly. Ricky and Reggie are still waiting.
Read Ricky and Reggie's full story
Ricky & ReggieCredit: catz4life
The chocolate family
Someone left a bird cage outside Abandoned Pet Rescue, a no-kill shelter in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Inside it was a mother cat and four kittens, crowded into a space built for something with wings.
The shelter named her Godiva. Her kittens became Hershey, Twix, Kit Kat and M&M. Godiva was losing weight and the kittens were far too young to be alone, so a foster took the whole family home until the litter grew up and Godiva recovered.
Godiva was adopted. So were Hershey and M&M. Twix and Kit Kat are the two who were not, and they are still at the shelter, where Twix has developed a method for stopping people as they pass her room. "She'll stand up on her hind legs, leaning her back against the wall for balance," staff member Luna Carvajal told LoveMeow.
Read Twix and Kit Kat's full story
Twix and Kit KatCredit: Abandoned Pet Rescue
The litter named after horses, for a reason
Three kittens were found this July under piles of garbage in a dilapidated garage behind an abandoned house in the New Jersey suburbs, four weeks old, eyes crusted shut with infection. New York City Animal Rescue Girls took in the whole family, including their mother, whose milk had dried up.
Their foster named them Appaloosa, Palomino, and Caspian. Appaloosa is the calico and the only girl, Palomino the orange and white boy, Caspian is the tuxedo.
The theme was not arbitrary. She chose horse breeds in honor of the New York carriage horses that advocates have been working to retire to sanctuary. Three kittens out of a garbage pile in New Jersey are carrying a campaign about horses in Manhattan, and almost nobody who reads their names will ever know it.
That is the thing about a naming theme. It is usually a message from the person who did the hardest part, and it is usually addressed to nobody.
Read Appaloosa, Palomino, and Caspian's full story
Caspian, Palomino, AppaloosaCredit: NYCARG
The Golden Years Gang
In September, someone noticed movement under a fallen tree on the grounds of a senior living facility on the south side of Indianapolis. Underneath were seven kittens, two and a half to three weeks old, and a mother who had been outdoors for months.
Alliance for Responsible Pet Ownership moved fast. "We couldn't say no to helping them, so we quickly made some calls, and within 15 minutes my husband and daughter arrived with old towels, Churus, and carriers," foster Lori White told LoveMeow.
The kittens were named for the place that sheltered them. Norman, Stanley, Bernard, Eugene, and Otis Henry are the five boys. Dottie and Pearl Louise are the two girls. Somebody christened the litter the Golden Years Gang, and it stuck, and it is the best litter name we published all year, because it turns the circumstance of their rescue into something with dignity in it.
All seven kittens are now spoken for.
Read the Golden Years Gang's full story
Millie and her babiesCredit: Lori White
The ones named for the worst night of their lives
Then there is the other category, and it is the one that stays with us.
Late on a Friday night in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Holly, a volunteer with SCRATCH, Inc., went looking for a kitten crying somewhere near a large drainpipe. She and her husband closed off the top of the pipe so he could not run into traffic, worked their way around to the far end, and played kitten sounds on a phone in the pitch dark so he would answer back. A rock slide had come down on him. Her husband found the tip of a tail with a flashlight and lifted the rocks off one at a time.
They named him Rocky. For the rocks, and for what it took to get out from under them.
RockyCredit: SCRATCH, Inc.
In Las Vegas, a six-week-old kitten weighing under two pounds was pressed against a concrete barrier on the Decatur Boulevard exit ramp while traffic came through. A truck driver working nights pulled over, picked him up, and then went looking for someone who would know what to do with a kitten. A neighbor pointed him to Homeward Bound Cat Adoptions.
They named him Freeway.
FreewayCredit: Homeward Bound Cat Adoptions
There is something quietly defiant in this. A cat gets named for the single worst thing that ever happened to him, and then he spends the next fifteen years being called it affectionately by people who feed him. The disaster becomes a nickname. Rocky doubled his weight in two weeks and now cannot sit still. A resident cat named Charles is teaching Freeway how to be a house cat.
What the naming is for
Rescue work is mostly logistics. Traps, transport, medication schedules, foster placements, phone calls at eleven at night. The naming is the one part of it that is purely optional, which is exactly why it is worth noticing.
A theme takes effort. Somebody has to look at five frightened animals that arrived as an emergency and decide they are squash varieties, or cheeses, or a gang of retirees. It is the first thing anyone does for them that is not medically necessary, and it is the moment a litter stops being a quantity.
Happy National Cat Day to everyone who has ever sat in a foster room at midnight trying to think of a fourth cheese.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do animal rescues give litters themed names?
Themed naming makes a litter easier to keep track of in records and in foster communication, but rescues and fosters describe it as something more than administrative. Naming a litter by theme is often the first non-medical thing done for kittens who arrived as an emergency, and it marks the point at which they are treated as individuals rather than as a group. Themes also make litters more memorable to potential adopters.
Who names rescue kittens?
Usually, it's the foster or the volunteer who brought them in. In the stories above, the themes came from a rescue president, a TNR team, a foster parent, and shelter staff. Occasionally, the name commemorates the rescue itself, as with Rocky, named for the rocks he was buried under, and Freeway, named for where a truck driver found him.
Can you adopt a whole litter together?
Sometimes, some bonded pairs are only placed together. Ricky and Reggie of the cheese brothers are being adopted as a pair, and Twix and Kit Kat remain at Abandoned Pet Rescue in Fort Lauderdale. Contact the organization named in each story for current availability.
Where can I read daily cat rescue stories?
LoveMeow publishes original cat rescue stories every day at lovemeow.com, sourced directly from rescue organizations, shelters, and foster families in the United States and internationally.
About LoveMeow
LoveMeow publishes original cat rescue stories daily, reported directly from rescue organizations, foster families, and shelters in the United States and around the world.
Browse all rescue coverage in our Rescue section and News section, or read our collections in Best of LoveMeow. New stories are published weekly.
