Do you name your chickens and if so how do you choose their names.

[fowltemptress]

How do I choose? That's a tough one.

The big, fat fluffy ones tend to get what I deem old lady names, like Geraldine or Penelope . . . names that no one in my age group seems to have, but my grandmother's generation seems to have quite a few of them. I think it has to do with being raised with Santa Claus, associating "fat" with old, so the old fashioned names fit better in my mind with my "fat" girls.

Silkies don't interest me, so I make my SO name them.

My naked necks remind me of vultures, and for some reason I always am reminded of all things Russian when I think of vultures, so they get Russian names.

As for my roosters, I don't like naming until I'm sure of the gender, and once I've sexed them I put off naming the roosters until I've decided on which one to keep. During that time I'll call them things like little guy, big guy, black guy, buff guy, etc. By the time I've chosen who I'm keeping, whatever I've been calling him is usually stuck. My current rooster is called Little Guy.

For everyone else . . . I dunno. There's always something in their look or personality that reminds you of something. My most recent hen, Tini, is very slender, and I swear she resembles the bust of Nefertiti. Add that to the fact that she's tinier than all my other chickens, and it just seemed natural to name her Nefertini, calling her Tini for short. Bug was named so because she snatched my contact out of my eye as a chick, so I deemed her a pest, and pest evolved into Bug as a name. Misanthropy (Missy) used to be the most wary of humans. Just some examples of the type of thought process that goes behind the naming of my hens. I never really decide to consciously think of a name . . . they just sort of occur naturally.

 

[thebrats]

We have named our chickens they are BLUEBELLES and we have called them Harriot and Henryetta. By naming them its easier for the children to know what one they are holding lol

 

[Chicks_N_Horses]

We name most of them. There are really too many to remember all their names but our favorites get names first.


I like to pick old fashioned women names for my hens but my kids mainly pick out the names for all of them.

 

[Whirlwind]

I always name mine. Names I like or after something. Never use the same name twice at least so far.

Lilly-Golden comet, my niece had a baby she wanted Lily for the name, she had a boy
Shasha and Malia, BO's after the first daughters
Raven, BSL, a character in a book I was reading when she was hatched
Two White Toe's, BSL Told my dh this one has 2 white toes he said thats her name then(first one he has ever named and she is my favorite now. )
Cloud Feather and Sky Dancer, BSL's continuing Native american names
6 BSL 5 week old roos don't name not keeping them

I lost Ziva and Abby I named from NCIS caracters.

 

[gwennym]

I usually name my birds, although my Pekin ducks are TOO hard to tell apart (except one girl with a very light colored bill) to name them all. I did name one male Pekin "Big Ben", but got 2 more males just this past weekend and now can't tell them apart.

The hens and roosters are easier for me.

Roosters:

Chief, Leroy, Java, and Prince Philip (used to be Lady Jane until he grew into his rooster-dom)

Hens:

Ginger (tries to escape like Ginger in "Chicken Run")
Cinnamon
Storm
Cloud
Moca
Lavender (black feathers that have a cool purple sheen in the light)
Tippy (she had white tips on her wings -- grown out of the white tips now, but the name stuck)

Guineas:

Too early to tell males from females AND they all look exactly the same.

Goose:

I had 2 (Lola and Frankie from a Jimmy Buffet song), but one of them ended up a coyote lunch. Now I just call the remaining goose "Miss Goose", although I'm not sure if she's really a SHE.

I usually name them by looks, personality, or in honor of someone. A couple of hens that are now RIP were named Charlotte, Black Betty (yeah, like the song), and, simply, Little White Chicky. My girls also help me name my critters.

Gwen

 

[patandchickens]

The names that tend to stick, aroudn here, are the ones that just "happen" rather than being thought up and *given* to the animal.

The names that I sit around and say, gee, I really ought to name those two hens, what can I name them... at best, it takes a long pause and some mental file-searching before I can recall who's who, and at worst, the name simply doesnt' stick.

I had a kitten (well, I still do, but he's 9 now) who was called simply Very Small Kitten for his first year and a half of life. Then one day his name seemed to be Bunny, and he's been Bunny ever since.

Had a orange (red dun) horse for a while that ended up just named Orange -- it wasn't a workaround or placeholder, like 'very small kitten' was, it just *was* his name. His stall nameplate even said "The Orange Horse"

Of course, MOST animals around here, when their names "happen", they are more normal and name-like names than that

(I still have no idea why my then 3-yr-old named one of last year's chantecler's "Ladder", though!)


Pat

 

[hikerchick]

We name some of them - usually some weird inspiration compels us.

Cheesecake was cheesecake colored as a baby.(Redstar)
Lemon looked like a lemon. (OEGB)
Duckling looked like a duckling. (OEGB)
Esteban and Marthelina - (white faced black Spanish) names just popped into our heads.
Snipes - was one of two stripey babies, Wesley Snipes and Wesley Stripes. Stripes died but Snipes prevails. (Gold sebright)
Plucky - he almost died several times and kept coming back to life. Not sure what he is but he was the ugliest youngster I ever saw, and now, he is handsome except his bottom is bare.

 

[The Zoo]

Our first two hens my husband named - they're Over and Easy. They're Barred Plymouth Rocks and very chickeny looking chickens.

The second two are Easter Eggers so I wanted something exotic and humorous so I chose Tikka and Masala. Of course I don't actually EAT chicken tikka masala any more since getting hens but I do still enjoy paneer tikka masala.

 

[stumble_n_mumble]

i have klutzy the swedish duck, stumble the peking duck, mumble a silkie, poofy another silkie and yoko the japanese bantam. lol

 

[pbjmaker]

I'm with Patandchickens. The chickens seem to "tell" us their names at some point. We just rehomed a duck named Bucket - not sure how that came to be her name but one day my 19 year old called her that and it stuck. Once it was apparent she was a girl it became Buckette.

My mille fleur d'uccles look so much alike at first glance that they tend to be collectively called "the dumb hens" But one has recently named herself Trixie. Her comb flops to one side like a little beret. It took a full year to come up with that name.

We have to sex-links that were Jenny and Jezzie but are now both just "The Jennies"

Right now there are 14 babies that need names - but they will get different homes so I'm trying not to name them.