Naming a dog

Naming a pet has always been difficult for me. There are so many options, none of them sounding exactly right. I received dozens of suggestions for names for my puppy, most of them very good. I liked Gracie, I liked Indigo, I liked Rolly (and I am just now disgruntled with my laptop for somehow automatically disabling my touchpad, so I had to go in and re-enable it, fumbling around since this has happened only twice in the last six months -- and now the tap=mouse click option is disabled, and I'm bummed since I can't find how to fix that).

A lot of the suggestions were names I have already used for previous pets - Smokie, Molly, too many to mention. And many were  names of friends and relatives, and when you think of the things one might scold a dog for, naming her after someone you know just didn't seem right.

I liked Gracie, it seems such an elegant name and has the 'gray' name of her color built in. But my last few dogs have had people names, and I want something more picturesque for a change.

Indigo was excellent, and for a while I even leaned toward Indiglow, because the puppy's hair is so luminescent. I pondered Indigo Moon for a name. It looks great on paper -- but then one must consider the possible nicknames. Indy would be a natural, but I don't like it because the vowels are both thin - in looks and in sound. Moonie is out. Dingo would be a possible nickname, but I don't like dog names that rhyme with "no."

Rolly was a great suggestion, with the idea of her silvery color and Rolls Royce luxury built in to the name. It's also brings the idea of rolly-polly to mind, and that is a problem, because I don't think rolly-polly is going to work for this puppy for very long.

Flower names was another theme, but a lot of the nice ones are also people names.

Nickel was high on the list for awhile. She is the color of a nickel and glows like a silvery coin. It almost won the contest, but Nicky sounds like a person's name, and I wanted something different.

One of my name themes was weather, so I thought of frost, ice, snow, diamonds, clouds. Frosty would be good but makes you think of Dairy Queen. Cumulonimbus would be a great name, shortened to Nimbus. But that is spoiled by the Nimbus fish hatchery near here.

In the end Thunder won. It's a nice two-syllable name that won't lend itself to cutesy nicknames. I suppose she could even be Thunderglow, Thundermoon, or Thunderfrost -- or even Thundergrace Indiglow Moonfrost (a nice hippie-sounding name!), to cover all bases, with Thunder being the name usually used.

Anyway, Thunder is it. Right now she is rumbling as she sleeps.