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Seattle’s most popular pet names of 2017

Hello, Lucy!

By Sarah Anne Lloyd
A very good dog at a 2016 Seattle Summer Parkways event.
Courtesy of SDOT

As the year 2017 draws to a close, Seattle has a lot to look back on. We elected a new mayor and a few new city councilors. We started implementing rezones with mandatory housing affordability attached—and looked toward spreading rezones around the city. Bertha the Tunnel-Boring Machine finally finished digging the State Route 99 tunnel.

But know what else Seattle did? We adopted pets, and we named those pets. And out of those adopted pets, more than 40,000 dogs, cats, miniature goats, and potbellied pigs were licensed with the city in 2017. (In addition to introducing your pet to the city, this is technically the law.)

Among these (usually) furry friends, some names popped up more than others. Lucy was the most popular pet name overall, and was the No. 1 pet name for both dogs and cats. Next come Charlie and Bella—also No. 2 and No. 3 for dogs.

Most popular pet names of 2017

Name Cat Dog Livestock Total
Name Cat Dog Livestock Total
Lucy 98 268 366
Charlie 65 229 294
Bella 69 214 283
Luna 70 160 230
Max 71 149 220
Molly 48 164 1 213
Lily 67 133 200
Jack 56 141 197
Buddy 30 165 195
Maggie 38 155 193
Daisy 30 161 1 192
Lola 35 155 190
Sophie 43 136 179
Sadie 26 142 168
Oliver 63 104 167
Stella 33 131 164
Chloe 36 118 154
Zoe 33 118 151
Ruby 36 112 148
Cooper 10 135 145
Data is current as of December 11. City of Seattle

Buddy, Stella, and Jack are all up there for pups, too.

While many popular names for dogs are popular names for cats too, second and third among felines were Max and Luna, respectively. While there’s a lot of overlap among the top 20, there weren’t quite as many canines named Kitty or Tiger.

In case you were wondering: Four dogs were, in fact, named Kitty, compared to 39 actual kitties. Two dogs and one cat were named Puppy. One dog was named Doggy. One cat was named Dog Horse El.

Out of the 27 livestock that were registered with the city, each had a unique name; Those include Professor Nibblesworth (guessing that’s a goat), Sister Bertrille (the Flying Nun, so maybe a pig), Brussels Sprout, and Fuzzy Peaches (could go either way).

The names that transcend species: Molly, Daisy, and, way down at No. 29, Olive.

Find out how popular your pet’s name is by checking the full data set.

Not everyone registers their pets. But dog name data from petsitting platform Rover was pretty much in line with the city’s pet license data, with Bella, Charlie, and Lucy all up there. Rover notes these are big names across the country; dog names uniquely popular to Seattle include Toby, Milo, Stella, and Lily.

This article has been updated to adjust for formatting.