Is it weird or demeaning to name an affectionate pet after a parent who’s passed?

I got a new kitten about a year ago and she was feral at first. (I trapped her on my porch on the anni of my dad’s death, actually) originally I was gonna bring her to the animal shelter so she could be adopted but I ended up keeping her.

She turned out to be the sweetest most loving animal. She prefers me to anyone else in the household. It’s like she is a little wise soul who senses I’m lost. Shes not aloof like most cats - she’s engaged and responsive to just about every single thing I do. Given a choice between sitting in a sunny window or sitting with me, she will pick me. Sleeping on her own on a fluffy blanket, or napping with me, it’s me, and she brings her toy mouse to bed too. She will self entertain sometimes if I’m busy but the second I stop she will tap me, kick me, reach out for me or nudge her nose right into my hand for pets on the head. Even though I officially take care of her, I feel like she takes care of me and her companionship is far more profound than any other animal I’ve had - even some dogs.

I wouldn’t change her name now, but sometimes I think I should have named her after my mom because she was also forever loving and intuitive with a special bond to me. But then I think maybe that’s weird and insulting in some way.

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Dignaga

In San Francisco after I got my first apartment I found in China Town selling weird crabs in a half filled aquarium in the back so I bought all four. I was told to fill the aquarium with water as they were aquatic.

I did that, but with a rock a inch below the surface. I ended up naming them Nietzsche, Siddhartha (after the Herman Hesse book) Ian and Jay. Nietzsche and Siddhartha because Siddhartha would sit on the rock but submerged, and Nietzsche because he was always sitting onto of Siddhartha above water like a selfish butthead getting dry. Jay and Ian were too gay guys I worked with and I was like just name them after them.

I eventually figured out they were land crabs and put them in a mostly dry and mossy aquarium, and they liked to make these little noises to each other to communicate. One day I told Jay and Ian they had crabs named after them and Jay thought it was great but Ian got upset saying you can't name pets after people, but Ian Ian the crab disintergrated one day and black stuff came leaking out of every joint and he was dead so I told the human Ian not to wlrrh as crab Ian dissolved apontaneously from the inside out. He seemed peeved and walked away in silence.

When I left San Francisco I released the other three between South San Francisco and San Bruno on the bay side, hoping they would make babies and overwhelm the ecosystem, but they didn't and I am sad now.

Turns out the crabs were extremely rare in America, imported from some island in the phillipines, I was one of the first adopters, and everytime I showed pics of them to asian people they said they wanted to eat them. Don't ever let asians near your pet crabs, especially if the crabs have names, too risky.

NativePortlander1970

@Dignaga Did you make sure it was water from the ocean and not tap water?

Dignaga

@NativePortlander1970 I temperature adjusted the bag they were in to the tap water, letting it float, but they said just used tap water. This was a shady china town shop who were used to seeing me around (I worked security just down the street and ate often in a vietnamese restaurant nearby, and used the area as a short cut to my gym at the YMCA. We would wave often and I'd look at the weird stuff they had.)

They were too cheap to use special water, if it couldn't survive in tap water it would die, because everything they sold was tap water filled. If they couldn't clean it with vinegar water it stayed dirty. Chinese immigrant stuff.

NativePortlander1970

@Dignaga That's why the crab died, it needed salt water from the ocean, that black goo was from the chlorine attacking its tissues and organs. My Grandfather had a tropical aquarium for decades and I took ocean biology my senior year of high school.

Dignaga

@NativePortlander1970 maybe, but the other three lived. I could of jidt walked over to the ocean side of san francisco on occasion and scooped up some water in a bag had I known that.