Naming Your Foals

i have a list of names ready, based on mare's name, sire's name, etc, but i wait to see what will suit the foal, which can take a lot of time... i had one who was "filly" for ages. sometimes they change dramatically though, "Daisy" suited my F.O. filly when she was a dainty foal, but now she's built like a brick privy it isn't quite so apt, but she knows it so i'm a bit stuck with it. some posh names come to me immediately, others take ages. the thesaurus gets quite a work-out sometimes.
best one i've managed so far:
Criminal Law x Gay Harmony = Jailhouse Rock. (Rocky) i loved that one!
 
In France the foals registered name has to begin with a specific letter. I usually find this helps as it gives a starting point. Luckily this year we didn't have any foals as the letter was U! My first foal was born in Q which was not much easier! However I ended up using my knowledge of latin and called her Quintessa, meaning essence. (this turned out to be a rather prophetic name as she was put down at 4 months)
These days if I see a name I like I write it down. They are frequently characters from books or arty things. For example I have Stoker, taken from the author of Dracula, Bram Stoker. And Tserulian, a corruption of the colour of the heavens Cerulium.
Very rarely will I give a horse a stable name, prefering to use the registered names. However my two foals from last year both have pet names. The first was born 3 weeks early and caught me by surprise. When I went down to the stable and found him, the first thing I said was "you're going to be trouble!" and trouble he has been by name and nature ever since! The second was the tiniest foal I have ever seen and he was nicknamed Tiny. He is still quite tiny in everything but attitude!
 
I won't tempt fate either by either writing down a name or telling anyone. I have a couple of names in my head but I want to see the foals safe and well before naming them. Not because I would not name them if anything happened, but because I do not want to count my chickens etc.

They will have the same first initial as their sires though.
 
I used to breed GSDs and registered the same prefix. I used to register the pups with names beginning with the same letter, so my first litter began with A, next litter with B etc. My last litter began with H, so the foal was going to have a name beginning with I. I had a number of ideas. When she was born she was very determined and was trying to stand up before her hindlegs were born. On describing this to my daughter, she said "you must call her Adina - it means powerful." I thought this fitted, and registered her. Now my daughter says she thinks she got it wrong - it means voluptuous! Someone also said - isn't that the woman in Ab Fab ? Anyway I think it suits her. The next foal will have to have a B name.
 
As this is the first foal i have ever bred i wanted something from my mare's name for her posh one so i looked at her name which is star in a lot of different languages and picked something from there and combined it with a name from a few generation's back on her sire's side and then added her birth time and it came out as Astra's midnight comet as for her stable name i just use astra.
 
My Haflinger is GB registered and they follow the Austrian studbook. This means that in registered name, if a boy the initial letter has to be same as sire, if a girl they have to have same initial letter as the dam.

So my girlies mum is Lena and her dad Barrique. So she came out female so had to be an 'L'. To match her Alpine background she is called Liesel!! If she had been a boy she would have to be a 'B' like her brothers Bayer and Brigadier!

I think it is a really nice idea, and it def helps people trace their horses lines back. Not that she will ever be sold.
 
My foal's sire is Saint Malo so her name needed to start with S, her dam is called Roulette so I went along the same theme and called her Solitaire. (It was either that or Snap! LOL)
 
I found the official name fairly easy - dam was called Gentles Risk, Risky to us, and the foal was spotted, so she is Spot the Risk. Stable name took a few more days, we picked Ellie for no particular reason, just didn't want to get into the habit of calling her Foal!
 
I usually have a couple of names ready that might fit the foal either with respect to the sex of the foal or its character. As I register with Studbooks I also have to keep into account the first letter of the name.

The name has to suit the foal ... a couple of years ago I had a foal that just didn't fit any of the names I could come up with. He was 3 weeks old before HE chose his name ... I called the names to him and he only looked up and called back to the one and that one stuck!
 
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