Naming Traditions

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DeLo727
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Naming Traditions

Post by DeLo727 » Wed Aug 14, 2019 10:53 am

Can anyone explain to me why we are still sticking to this archaic naming tradition with certain breeds?
I'm a lifetime EB owner and will be receiving a new pup this year and must name the pup something starting with "P". Most breeders will tell you that they don't care what you call the dog as long as it's registered name starts with whatever letter corresponds to the year.
A: this seems to defeat the purpose of naming a dog B: Why is it necessary? There is no reason for someone to be able to tell what age my dog is by their name. All they have to do is ask or look at a pedigree. I just don't understand why we are still using it. Can anyone give some insight into how this would still be useful?

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Post by shags » Wed Aug 14, 2019 11:37 am

How interesting but kind of weird. According to the breed club website, that's a tradition a la francais, not a rule, in the US.
While there are no similar naming rules for registering dogs in the United States, many Epagneul Breton breeders and owners choose to follow the French tradition. The chart shows the letters used from 2005 into the future.

Will the breeder fill in part of the registration form with a "P" so you're stuck with it?

I wonder if anyone other than a EB supernerd would even know all the letter/year correlations off the top of their head. For sure it would have me counting backwards on my fingers and toes. "My dog is a "B" so 2006, and your dog is an L, so that makes him...lemme see, B, C, D,..."

At any rate, of all my dogs ever, only one time did the breeder request a certain letter for the name. I did it out of respect because she was sort of a mentor at that time, and I didn't really care anyway. Other than that, naming my dogs was up to me.

Thanks for bringing this up, that's something new I learned today.

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Re: Naming Traditions

Post by cjhills » Wed Aug 14, 2019 6:49 pm

German breeders Named their puppies themselves going from litter A to Z or what ever the letters of the German alphabet Are. Many used Von Der or VOM which seems to translate to Of or Of the. A few still do. Like Gustaf Vom Riverwood or Jacob VD Westwind. Some breeders find that very Important......Cj

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DeLo727
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Re: Naming Traditions

Post by DeLo727 » Thu Aug 15, 2019 6:19 am

The EB kennels still usually include the kennel name in the registered name but that’s common and doesn’t bother me one bit.
But like someone else said, nobody other than a supernerd would even know the correlating year. I just don’t understand what the practical purpose is. You could just ask, “how old is the dog?” Or “Can I see the pedigree?” If you’re seriously looking into a dog enough to be trying to find out how old it is for breeding purposes or something you are gunna want to research the pedigree anyhow, why would you care what it’s name started with? It seem like we are holding on to an ancient tradition that serves basically no purpose other than to annoy people and produce dogs with weird names.

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Re: Naming Traditions

Post by Urban_Redneck » Mon Aug 19, 2019 5:40 am

I like the tradition as I can tell at a glance the age of the dog. I will admit some years seem to challenge creativity and even in smaller breeds like the BA, we end up with a multiple Pablo, Paco, Panda, Pico, Pixel, etc.

I have an "M" - Melodie, but, I call her Kasia :P

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Re: Naming Traditions

Post by DeLo727 » Mon Aug 19, 2019 10:55 am

That’s where you lose me. Naming a dog one thing and calling it another. Seems pointless. You can’t tell a dogs age if someone is using a call name. If anything, it will confuse people

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Re: Naming Traditions

Post by Urban_Redneck » Tue Aug 20, 2019 5:40 am

DeLo727 wrote:
Mon Aug 19, 2019 10:55 am
That’s where you lose me. Naming a dog one thing and calling it another. Seems pointless. You can’t tell a dogs age if someone is using a call name. If anything, it will confuse people
Who are you really confusing? My dog is either Melodie de la Ruse des Bois (Kasia) or Kasia (Melodie de la Ruse des Bois) depending on who I am talking to and where I am standing :wink: It's not uncommon in France- at least among the folks I know to have a different call name for their dogs, although it usually begins with the same letter as the litter/yr.

When I go to France to attend our club meeting and national show, I bring a few photocopies of my dog's pedigree to share, that's the universal language.

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Re: Naming Traditions

Post by DeLo727 » Sat Sep 07, 2019 10:49 am

Urban_Redneck wrote:
Tue Aug 20, 2019 5:40 am
DeLo727 wrote:
Mon Aug 19, 2019 10:55 am
That’s where you lose me. Naming a dog one thing and calling it another. Seems pointless. You can’t tell a dogs age if someone is using a call name. If anything, it will confuse people
Who are you really confusing? My dog is either Melodie de la Ruse des Bois (Kasia) or Kasia (Melodie de la Ruse des Bois) depending on who I am talking to and where I am standing :wink: It's not uncommon in France- at least among the folks I know to have a different call name for their dogs, although it usually begins with the same letter as the litter/yr.

When I go to France to attend our club meeting and national show, I bring a few photocopies of my dog's pedigree to share, that's the universal language.
I agree with you, the pedigree is the universal language. But I still disagree with the naming traditions. It seems foolish and I absolutely cannot understand why people are so defensive about it. If you want to know how old a dog is, just ask the owner or look at the pedigree, that's a very simple and foolproof way to discover a dogs age. Instead we force owners to name their dog a certain way at the inconvenience of only the owner.
When you own a dog you own it, it's your property, your family and that as they say, is that. Yet for registration purposes we are told a dog must be named with such and such letter. Its insanely lazy for a breed club (who has the papers and birthdates) or breeder to make someone name a dog a certain way just so they can tell what year the dog is born. Add to that the fact that people use call names and you confuse the situation more.

How about an example. My current dog's name is Louis. His full name is Louis II de Lescarbot. Let us say that I decided to use the call name of "Fido" because I don't like names that start with L. When someone asks me the dogs name I am going to say Fido, I am not going to say "his name is Louis II de Lescarbot". To the person asking his name the initial assumption must be that the dog was born in an F year, but it will look the wrong age so they will have to ask how old the dog is anyway. That is how it usually plays out. The vast majority of dogs will never be bred or trialed and if you do like a dog for breeding you are going to do a lot research on the dog beyond asking its name. Yet because of the naming tradition, the rest of us have to register our dogs under names that we wouldn't otherwise choose, its archaic.
Isn't it just as easy to see a dog that peaks your interest in some way or another and say to the owner...."Thats a great looking dog you have there, how old is it? Seems pretty simple to me.

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Re: Naming Traditions

Post by shags » Sat Sep 07, 2019 12:19 pm

Could you name your dog "LFido" and when asked his name say "Fido with an L"?

Does the registry demand having to wait 15 years or so to get to a preferred name? That would tick me off.

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DeLo727
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Re: Naming Traditions

Post by DeLo727 » Sat Sep 07, 2019 1:12 pm

shags wrote:
Sat Sep 07, 2019 12:19 pm
Could you name your dog "LFido" and when asked his name say "Fido with an L"?

Does the registry demand having to wait 15 years or so to get to a preferred name? That would tick me off.
You can, many people name their dogs L'Fido. It just seems so silly to me that they would even have to do that. Each year is assigned a letter and all names during each year should start with that letter. K,Q,W,X,Y, and Z are all excluded so it resets every twenty years.

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Re: Naming Traditions

Post by Urban_Redneck » Wed Sep 18, 2019 4:17 am

Change the rule! 8)

Again, it all depends who is asking the dog's name, some soccer mom or a potential stud or dam owner. Most folks don't really care. The breeder my pup came from asked me for a "M" name and then asked what name I would call her. I don't know whether all breeders consult owners before registering litters, it seems among the breeders I'm familiar with, litters are named and registered before pups are selected. I understand your point, I just can't get worked up about it.

To confuse things further for a database geek like me, many central European kennels follow the litter #1 =A, litter #2= B. litter #3 = C, etc.

My personal grown is dogs named Remmy (Remington) and Ruger, we need a moratorium on those names :lol:

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Re: Naming Traditions

Post by reba » Thu Sep 19, 2019 3:31 pm

You have no idea the names I have called my dogs :D

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