Had a horse that came with the name Turnip .............didnt really suit a starpping big 16.1 warmblood, changed to James before his hooves left the lorry ramp as unloading ... !
My mare is Madison and definitely doesn't suit her. She's always known as Mads but that's still not right. She's definitely a Barbara but I didn't have the balls to change it when I bought her and it's too late now.
Personally I'm not keen on peoples names for pets. Have know quite a few though, don't mind the Cody, Lily and similar not so keen on the Jeremy's and Kenny's though.
I have lots of horses with mens names but have never had a mare with a women's name .
We had a Poppet , who was a strapping Irish hunter with a bolsy and gun ho attitude to life we changed it to Rocket as Poppet was just wrong for her .
My mare is Polly and my daughter's mare is Faith (she is Tinka on her passport but previous owners called her Faith and it suits her much better). On the yard we have geldings with men's names: Oliver (shortened to Ollie), Joe, Fin, Murphy, Bailey and Jethro,
Mine was called Andy when I bought him, way too human for my liking so I changed it to Archie. This was just before Archie became a really popular name for little boys. Although he is mostly known as Pain in the Arch these days.
My mare was called chloe but someone else changed it to ruby before I bought her. I call her Roo
My gelding is called Jimmy, I tried to change it several times but it suited him so well that I would find myself calling him Jimmy again 10 minutes later
I bought my connie from a dealer, an Irish lad over here selling animals from his fathers Irish stock. I asked what the young pony's name was and he said 'Errrrrrrr, hmm, Bobby?' So it stuck. but he does get called variations of it at home!
At the yard we have Barney, Megan, Jack, Gustav, Abby, Oscar, Oliver, Lucy, Fergus, Dora.
I owned a quarter horse called Angie and a draft cross called Dante.
Over the years, I've met more than I can remember. Offhand, I can think of Josh, Toby, Tom, Dave, Annie, Annabel, Ruben, Tommy, Tara, Tony, Ben, Kate, Charlotte, Bob, George, Dan, Bjorn, Tim, Cat, Maggie, Victor, Finn, May, Ron.....
L's pony came to us called Becky - only reason we nearly changed it was that Laura was being picked on my a Becky at school. We kept it though, it suits her. My horse on loan to me by my boss is called Sebastian. I call him Seb or Sebbie mostly though.
I love old fashioned human names for animals but as soon as I use them they come back into fashion and cease to be old fashioned! When I named Archie, it was virtually unheard of as a human name but now there are little boys everywhere called Archie. The same with my dog Mabel - it was a bit of a comedy name when we named her, now there are lots of 3 years old Mabels around!
The last ones I named were (now GGs) little ponies Bert and Ernie - they're half brothers so it just fitted them and their older siblings Fred and Ginger (two pairs of half sibling foals from two consecutive years) None of them were mine so they weren't official names, just what I called them, but GG kept their names. And yes, lots of Freddies and Berties around now! Don't know of any Ernies yet though.
Next horse (entirely hypothetical) will be Ralph, Norman (Norm for short) or Geoff. (it has to be a gelding as yard only allows boys). These names will also be considered for boy dogs but if next dog is a girl I'm thinking Maud, Edna or Enid. My sister stole my favourite, Doris, for her cat.
I personally think human names are great for all animals. My two horses both came to me with human names. One day I've promised myself a horse, dog or cat named Norman.
The funniest name I've heard recently is a cat called Alan, made funnier still by Alan being female!
Mine's called Freya. I got her straight of racing without a name apart from her registered name of 'Loves Theme'. Freya is a Nordic Goddess of love so I thought it appropriate