305 dog names by color, with meanings

We read the dog name lists that rank on Google for black, white, brown, golden and black-and-white dogs before writing this one. None we read links a meaning to a source, and the meanings drift. Amaya is listed as Spanish for "night rain", when it's a variant of Basque Amaia, "the end" (Behind the Name). Duncan appears as "dark warrior" on a list of black-dog names, when it's "brown" plus "battle" (Behind the Name). Nerissa is given as Italian for black-haired, though it's Shakespeare's coinage, possibly from a Greek word for a sea nymph (Behind the Name). And one list files Balto with its big white dogs. The real Balto was a black husky (University of Alaska Fairbanks).

So every name here links to where it comes from: mostly Behind the Name for given names, Wiktionary, Jisho and SpanishDict for words, Theoi for Greek myth and Project Gutenberg for the books, with libraries, museums, kennel clubs and Wikipedia for real dogs. Every coat fact links to its source. We left out cartoon, film and game characters and brand names on purpose: those belong to someone else, and you'll find them on plenty of other lists anyway. We also dropped names whose everyday meaning in another language is rude, and one-syllable names that rhyme with a cue like sit, stay or no.

Which dog name fits which coat?

Start with the coat. These three names per color are a good first shortlist, and the middle column is the short reason the coat looks the way it does.

What do owners actually name each coat?

Mostly the same names they'd give any dog. In the City of Austin's shelter records, at least one of Luna, Bella or Max is in the top three for 10 of the 11 coats we could count. Only black dogs escape. Owners who do name for color pick the obvious word, and Midnight and Shadow together still cover just 38 of 1,594 black dogs.

Other lists rank owner choices without giving a count. Chewy's customer ranking and Rover's database ranking both put Bear first for black dogs. Austin has real counts, and there Bear has 10 black dogs, tied for ninth with Duke, Buddy and Sadie and well behind Shadow's 20. Bear, for the record, is generally explained as an old Germanic word for "the brown one" (Wiktionary).

How we counted

We started with the City of Austin's outcome records and intake records, public data covering October 2013 to May 2025. That's 65,482 named dogs. We kept the ones whose names almost certainly came from an owner: dogs reclaimed by an owner, surrendered by one, or brought in for a euthanasia request. We removed names marked with an asterisk, which the city has said means shelter staff chose the name, plus 275 dogs whose names weren't plain words, such as ones with numbers. That left 29,509 dogs and 7,821 different names. The overall leaders are Max (356), Bella (334) and Luna (286).

The caveats: this is one Texas city's shelter, so Spanish names may run higher than they would elsewhere, and shelter staff recorded the coat colors. The table covers the 16,562 dogs whose recorded color fit one coat. The other 12,947 are mostly two-color records, such as brown and white or black and tan, and they aren't in any row. The records have no spotted color, so most Dalmatians sit in the black-and-white row. And some names that stand out in it aren't in our lists, for the reasons given above.

Black dog names

Black is the most common Labrador color in UK vet records, at 44.6 percent of dogs with a recorded color in a 2018 study of 2013 records (McGreevy et al., 2018), and it's the color people search for most, so this is the longest list here.

What makes a dog black?

A three-letter DNA deletion in a gene called CBD103 switches the whole coat to black pigment. Researchers followed it through 454 dogs from 38 breeds (Candille et al., 2007). One copy is enough, unless the dog also has two copies of the yellow version of a second gene, MC1R. Solid black German Shepherds get there another way, with two broken copies of the agouti gene (Kerns et al., 2007).

The odd part is the wolves. North American black wolves inherited their color from past crosses with domestic dogs: 102 of 104 black Yellowstone wolves carried the same deletion, and none of 120 gray ones did (Anderson et al., 2009).

Do black dogs get adopted less?

The evidence is split, and it seems to change from shelter to shelter. The idea has a name, black dog syndrome, but one 2016 study says the case for it rests mostly on anecdote and theory (Sinski et al., 2016). Here's what the counts show:

• No effect. Across nearly 16,700 dogs at two Pacific Northwest shelters, black dogs did not wait significantly longer than others (Svoboda and Hoffman, 2015, release). Coat color also made no difference at two New York no-kill shelters (Brown et al., 2013).
• A small effect. Among 7,440 dogs in Louisville, no raw link appeared, but once other factors were controlled, fully black dogs had somewhat lower adoption odds. Big black dogs specifically were not worse off (Sinski et al., 2016).
• A larger effect. In a Czech team's shelter study, black dogs took longest to find homes, a median of 32 days against 17 for brindle (Voslarova et al., 2019).

Anyone telling you this is settled, in either direction, is claiming more than the research shows.

Black dog names to start with

Shadow and Midnight are the two names Austin owners gave black dogs most often. Bear leads the Chewy and Rover rankings, which is funny given what the word probably means.

• Midnight. Mid plus night, a compound already in Old English as midniht. Also the hour a black dog vanishes on the sofa. Wiktionary
• Shadow. Old English sceadu could mean shade, darkness and even protection. Fits the dog who trails you room to room. Wiktionary
• Raven. The bird tied to Odin in Norse myth, with a name that goes back to Old English hraefn. Also used as a given name. Behind the Name
• Bear. Germanic word generally explained as 'the brown one', a taboo nickname for the animal, though at least one linguist doubts it. Wiktionary
• Onyx. The gemstone, which can be black, from Greek onyx, 'claw, nail'. So yes, you're naming your dog after a toenail. Behind the Name

Black Lab names and real black dogs

Nell and Ned come straight from Labrador history. The rest are real dogs whose black coats are on the record, or breeds known for it.

• Nell. A St. John's water dog, pictured at age 12 in 1867. Most of her kind, the Newfoundland ancestors of the Labrador, were black with white tuxedo marks. Product of Newfoundland
• Ned. One of two dogs the third Earl of Malmesbury sent to Scotland; they helped found the modern Labrador. American Kennel Club
• Canton. Black female pup saved from a sinking brig in 1807, a traditional founder of the Chesapeake Bay retriever. The rescue ship was the Canton. American Chesapeake Club
• Sunny. The all-black Portuguese water dog at the Obama White House. Sunny is a fine joke to play on a black coat. PBS NewsHour
• Fala. Franklin Roosevelt's black Scottish Terrier, who hurried in when the doors opened for press conferences, and often for cabinet meetings, to sit at the president's feet. Presidential Pet Museum
• Stickeen. John Muir's companion on an 1880 Alaska glacier crossing, a little black dog with long silky hair and a tail as airy as a squirrel's, named for the Stickeen people at Fort Wrangel. Project Gutenberg
• Balto. The black husky who led the final leg of the 1925 diphtheria serum relay into Nome; his mount stands in the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. University of Alaska Fairbanks
• Swansea Jack. A black retriever who pulled at least 27 people and two dogs from the water in Swansea, Wales, between 1930 and 1937. Jack is the part you'd call across a park. BBC News
• Eos. Prince Albert's beloved greyhound, named for the Greek goddess of dawn, whom Queen Victoria's 1839 journal describes as a charming black hound. Royal Collection Trust
• Hamlet. Sir Walter Scott's black greyhound at Abbotsford, whom the visiting Washington Irving found wild and thoughtless and teased as a dark-coated prince of Denmark. Project Gutenberg
• Skipper. The Schipperke, the Flemish barge dog, has a name that translates as 'little skipper' or 'little boatman'. Black is one of its standard colors. Royal Kennel Club
• Xolo (SHOW-low). Breed named for the god Xolotl plus the Nahuatl word for dog. Its colors include black and dark gray. National Museum of the American Indian

Coal, ink and other black things

One warning on Sable. As a word it means black, but in a dog coat, sable means black-tipped hairs over a lighter background (Wikipedia), so a breeder may hear something else.

• Jet. The hard black coal behind the phrase jet black, sometimes set into jewelry. Wiktionary
• Coal. Old English col, from a root meaning 'to burn, shine', which suits a glossy black coat. Wiktionary
• Ink. From Greek for 'burned-in', via Latin and French. It pushed out the Old English word for ink, blaec, literally 'black'. Wiktionary
• Sable. An English word for black, borrowed from the dark-furred animal of northern Asia, and Slavic at its root. Behind the Name

Black dog names from myth and folklore

The first two are hounds from Ovid's list of the dogs of Actaeon, so writers have been naming black dogs for their coats for about two thousand years.

• Melampus (meh-LAM-pus). Means 'Black-foot': one of the two hounds who start the chase in Ovid's account of Actaeon's pack, and of Spartan breed. Ovid, Riley translation
• Melaneus (meh-LAY-nee-us). Riley's notes to Ovid gloss this hound of Actaeon's as 'Black-coat', from Greek melas, black. Mel works as the everyday call name. Ovid, Riley translation
• Cole. In a 1585 English list of dog names, Ovid's sooty hound Asbolus is translated as Cole. Names journal, Ovid, Riley translation
• Shuck. Black Shuck is the ghostly black dog of East Anglia; the Oxford English Dictionary traces the name to Old English scucca, devil or fiend. Wikipedia
• Moddey Dhoo. Manx for black dog: a phantom big black spaniel with shaggy curls that lay by the guardroom fire at Peel Castle. Cumming, 1848
• Hecate (HEK-uh-tee). A Greek goddess of magic whose sacred animal was a black dog. In one myth the dog is Hecuba, queen of Troy, transformed. Theoi
• Anubis. The Egyptian god of mummification, shown as a black jackal though real jackals run mostly brown; black was the color of fertile Nile soil. TheCollector
• Nyx (nicks). Greek goddess of night, pictured as a dark haze pulled over the daytime sky. Theoi

Given names tied to black and night

• Blake. Two Old English words could be behind this surname: blaec, 'black', or blac, 'pale'. Opposites, so it works on either dog. Behind the Name
• Melanie. Greek melaina, 'black, dark', reached English as Melanie from France, by way of Latin Melania. This one really does mean black. Behind the Name
• Kieran (KEER-an). The English spelling of Ciaran, a diminutive of the Irish name Ciar, which means 'black'. Two 6th-century Irish saints bore it. Behind the Name, on Ciar
• Ciara (KEER-uh). From Irish ciar, 'black'. An Irish nun called both Ciar and Ciara set up a monastery in Tipperary in the 7th century. Behind the Name
• Layla. Arabic for 'night', and the heroine of the old Arab tale retold by the Persian poet Nizami. Behind the Name
• Bran. Irish for 'raven'. In legend, Bran mac Febail sailed off in search of the Otherworld. One easy syllable. Behind the Name

Black in other languages

• Kuro (KOO-roh). The plain Japanese word for black, written 黒. Jisho also lists 'guilty person', which suits any dog beside a chewed shoe. Jisho
• Noir (nwahr). French for black, inherited from Latin, and a single soft syllable for a soft black dog. Wiktionary
• Nero (NEH-roh). The Italian word for black, which also happens to match a short form of Raniero. The Roman emperor's name has its own separate entry. Behind the Name
• Dubh (doov). Irish for black or black-haired, from Old Irish dub. You'll meet the same word inside Donovan, in the brown names. Wiktionary
• Azabache (ah-sah-BAH-cheh). Spanish for jet, the mineral, and for the coal tit, a bird. SpanishDict's phrase for jet-black is built on it. SpanishDict
• Tinta (TEEN-tah). Spanish for ink, and it already sounds like a small dog's name. SpanishDict
• Sumi (SOO-mee). Japanese 墨, ink from an ink stick. The same word covers squid and octopus ink. Jisho

Put the name on the wall

Upload one photo of your dog, pick a character, from a gentleman in black tie to a decorated general, and see the proof before you decide anything. Then choose a puzzle, canvas, framed print or blanket.

Free proofFree US shipping

See the gentleman dog portrait

Your photo is deleted within 24 hours of fulfillment and is never used to train AI.

White dog names

What makes a dog white?

Usually one of two things: missing pigment cells, or red-yellow pigment diluted almost to nothing. True albinism is a rare third route (Hedan et al., 2019). Solid white West Highland White Terriers, Bichons and White Shepherds belong to the second group. All 26 tested in that study were red-yellow dogs with the color diluted away, and pale dogs of that kind keep their pigment on the nose, eye rims, lips and pads.

Are white dogs deaf?

White alone doesn't mean deaf, though the risk is real. In George Strain's hearing tests at LSU, 79.6 percent of 362 white Bull Terriers heard in both ears, 18.2 percent were deaf in one and 2.2 percent in both. Among 313 colored Bull Terriers, only 1.3 percent were deaf (Strain, LSU). Those are rates for one breed, not for all white dogs.

No DNA test exists for inherited deafness in white dogs, so a BAER hearing test is how you confirm it (Strain, LSU). One-sided deafness is hard to spot at home (Strain, LSU).

White dog names from snow and ice

In Austin's records, Snowy, Snowball and Snow rank highest on white dogs by the table's measure. They aren't in our list: Snowy and Snowball belong to well-known characters, and Snow rhymes with no. These three say the same thing and belong to nobody.

• Yuki (YOO-kee). Japanese for snow. Luci Johnson found this mixed-breed dog at a Texas gas station on Thanksgiving Day 1966 and named him; he ended up as LBJ's companion. LBJ Presidential Library
• Eirwen (AIR-wen). Welsh eira, snow, plus gwen, white or blessed: an early 20th-century coinage that adds up to white snow. Behind the Name
• Chione (ky-OH-nee). Daughter of Boreas, the north wind, in Greek myth and probably a snow goddess; her name means snow. Theoi

Named for white things

• Pearl. From the word for the gem, via Medieval Latin perla; in use as a given name since the 1800s. Behind the Name
• Cotton. Via French coton from Arabic. The Coton de Tuléar, a breed from Madagascar, has a fluffy, cotton-like coat. Wiktionary, Wikipedia
• Marshmallow. Before it was candy it was a wetland plant, the marsh mallow, and the first sweets really were made from it. Wiktionary
• Mochi (MOH-chee). The Japanese rice cake: glutinous rice pounded into paste and molded into shape. Jisho
• Beluga. An Arctic whale; the word is borrowed from Russian and built on the Russian adjective for white. Wiktionary

White in other languages

Spanish runs through Austin's data, so Blanca and Paloma both show up well above their overall rate on white dogs (4.6 and 5.6 times).

• Shiro (SHEE-roh). A dog in Ozaki's Japanese Fairy Tales: his owners call him Shiro, which means white, because of his color. Project Gutenberg
• Blanca (BLAHN-kah). Spanish and Catalan form of Blanche, a medieval French nickname meaning white or fair. Behind the Name, on Blanche
• Blanco (BLAHN-koh). Spanish for white, and the name of LBJ's white collie, given to the Johnsons in December 1963 by a little girl in Illinois. LBJ Library, SpanishDict
• Bianca (bee-AHN-kah). Italian sister of Blanche and Blanca, so it still means white; Shakespeare gave it to two unrelated characters. Behind the Name, on Blanche
• Bán (BAWN). Irish for white or fair-haired, inherited directly from the Old Irish word for white. Wiktionary

Doves, bears and big white guardians

• Paloma (pah-LOH-mah). Spanish for dove or pigeon, and a given name in its own right among Spanish speakers. Behind the Name
• Oso (OH-soh). Spanish for bear, so there is no color in it, though a polar bear is an oso polar. SpanishDict
• Akbash (AHK-bahsh). A Turkish livestock guardian breed, borrowed from Akbaş, literally white head. Wiktionary

Given names that mean white

• Fiona. Feminine of Fionn, from Old Irish finn, white or blessed. Poet James Macpherson may have been first to use it, in 1761. Behind the Name, on Fionn
• Finn. Old Irish form of Fionn, white or blessed. A separate Norse Finn means a Sámi person or someone from Finland, so the white reading is only one. Behind the Name, on Fionn, on the Norse Finn
• Alba. Three strands in one name: Latin for white, as the feminine of Albus; a Germanic short form meaning elf; and the Italian and Spanish word for dawn. Behind the Name, elf, dawn
• Gwen. Welsh feminine of gwyn, white or blessed; also a short form of longer names such as Gwendolen. Behind the Name
• Gwyn. Welsh for white or blessed. In legend Gwyn is an Otherworld king and the leader of the Wild Hunt. Behind the Name
• Olwen (OL-wen). Welsh for white footprint, from ol, track, and gwen, white: worth a look for a dog with white paws. Behind the Name
• Finlay (FIN-lee). Anglicized Fionnlagh, white warrior, from Old Irish finn and láech. Macbeth's father carried an earlier form of the name. Behind the Name

Real white dogs, and white from myth and the sky

• Rob Roy. Calvin Coolidge's white collie wore a redhead's name: the Scottish outlaw Rob Roy was Raibeart Ruadh, Robert the Red. Presidential Pet Museum, Behind the Name
• Prudence. Prudence Prim, Grace Coolidge's white collie, once wore a ribboned straw bonnet to a White House garden party. Presidential Pet Museum
• Hachiko. A cream-white Akita named Hachi, or eight, who kept going back to Tokyo's Shibuya Station for years after his owner, an agricultural professor, died in 1925. BBC News
• Polly. Charles Darwin's closest canine companion, a rough-coated white fox terrier who turned glum whenever she caught him packing for a trip. Project Gutenberg
• Patsy Ann. A deaf white bull terrier who met the ships at the Juneau docks and was named the town's official greeter by the mayor. National Purebred Dog Day
• Belka (BYEL-kah). Russian for squirrel, also read as Whitey: the paler of two dogs who orbited Earth in 1960 and came home alive. Wikipedia, Business Insider
• Arawn. A king of Annwvyn in the Mabinogion, whose hunting hounds are a brilliant white with red ears that gleam. Project Gutenberg
• Sirius. The Dog Star itself, set in Canis Major, the Big Dog constellation, and outshining every other star with a blue-tinted white light. Space.com
• Procyon (PRO-see-on). The Little Dog's white lead star; the Greek name means before the dog, since it rises ahead of Sirius. Jim Kaler, Stars
• Luna. Latin for 'the moon', and the Roman moon goddess, often shown driving a white chariot through the sky. Behind the Name

Golden and yellow dog names

Most lists read "golden" as golden retriever. These names work for any gold dog, retriever or not.

What makes a dog golden or yellow?

Two broken copies of a gene called MC1R stop black pigment, leaving only the red-yellow one. That change matched red or yellow coats in 194 dogs of 19 breeds, with the Red Chow the one exception (Newton et al., 2000). Cream, yellow, gold and deep red are then one pigment at different strengths, from a Samoyed to an Irish Setter. Across 3,057 dogs, five gene regions explained over 70 percent of the difference (Slavney et al., 2021). That study's authors work for a dog DNA testing company and used customers' photos.

Is an English Cream golden a separate breed?

No. The Golden Retriever Club of America calls the label incorrect, says cream has always been in the breed, and says color doesn't determine a Golden's temperament, health or longevity (GRCA). The two kennel clubs do disagree on how pale is too pale. The AKC standard calls extremely pale body color undesirable (AKC), and the UK standard accepts any shade of gold or cream but not red or mahogany (Royal Kennel Club).

Golden retriever names from the first breeding

The breed started with a yellow dog and a brown one in the Scottish Highlands in 1868, and the pups got flower names.

• Nous (NOWSS or NOOSS). The foundation sire of the golden retriever, the light pup from a black Wavy-Coat litter. The golden club glosses his name as wisdom; the Greek word means mind. Golden Retriever Club of America, Wiktionary
• Belle. The liver-colored Tweed Water Spaniel bred to Nous in 1868, so the breed's founding mother was brown. The accepted account has all goldens today descending from the pair, though one GRCA article questions how simple that story is. BBC News, Golden Retriever Club of America
• Cowslip. Yellow pup kept from the 1868 litter, named for a yellow flower whose Old English name joins cow and a word for sticky paste. Friends of Guisachan, Wiktionary
• Primrose. Cowslip's littermate and the other pup Lord Tweedmouth kept. The flower's name comes from Latin for first rose. Friends of Guisachan, Behind the Name
• Crocus. The male from the 1868 litter, given to Lord Tweedmouth's son; like his sisters, he got a flower name. Friends of Guisachan

What should you name a yellow Lab?

The AKC standard lets a yellow Lab run from fox-red to light cream (AKC). Ben was the first yellow Lab registered with the Kennel Club, and Juno was his yellow sister.

• Ben. Ben of Hyde, born in 1899 to two black parents, was the first yellow Labrador registered with the Kennel Club. Gundog Journal
• Juno. Ben of Hyde's yellow sister. Her stock all came out black and his yellow, which is why Mr. Radclyffe concentrated on yellow Labs. Gundog Journal

Famous golds

• Liberty. Gerald Ford's golden retriever, a copper-colored pup who arrived named Streaker and was renamed Liberty. Gerald R. Ford Library
• Fido. Abraham Lincoln's yellow mongrel in Springfield, Illinois, who trailed him to the law office and stayed with neighbors when the family left for Washington. National Park Service
• Flush. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's dog: in her 1844 poem, darkly brown until sunlight flashes his curls to gold, with a silver chest. Representative Poetry Online
• Mustard. Walter Scott's novel Guy Mannering gives a farmer terriers named only Pepper and Mustard; Mustard is still a Dandie Dinmont color. Project Gutenberg, Royal Kennel Club
• Chryseus (KRIS-ee-us). Half of Cyon Chryseus, the Latin spelling of the Golden Dog of Greek myth, set to guard the infant Zeus, then placed among the stars as Canis Major. Theoi

Honey and sweet things

Honey is 3.6 times more common on golden dogs than on dogs overall in Austin's records.

• Honey. English word from Old English hunig, first used as a nickname for a sweet person. Behind the Name
• Miel (MYEL). Means honey in both Spanish and French, and comes from Latin mel. Wiktionary
• Melyn (MEL-in). Welsh for yellow, and the word itself grew out of an old Celtic word for honey. Wiktionary
• Caramel. Reached English through French and Spanish, possibly from a Latin word for a little reed; also a yellow-brown color. Wiktionary

Gold and golden names

• Nugget. A small compact lump. Origin uncertain; first recorded for animals and people in Scotland, and for ore chunks in Australia. Wiktionary
• Goldie. Began as a nickname for someone with blond hair, taken straight from the English word gold. Behind the Name
• Orla (OR-lah). Anglicized Órlaith, golden ruler, from Old Irish ór, gold, and flaith, ruler; a sister of Brian Boru bore it. Behind the Name
• Kin (KEEN). Japanese for gold, both the metal and the color. Jisho
• Oro (OH-roh). Spanish for gold, and the two-syllable, vowel-ending shape AKC says works well for a call name. SpanishDict, American Kennel Club
• Dorado (doh-RAH-doh). Spanish adjective for golden, the same form as the past participle of dorar, to brown. SpanishDict

Latin and Greek gold

• Aurelia. Feminine of the Roman family name Aurelius, from Latin aureus, golden or gilded. Behind the Name, on Aurelius
• Aurelio (ow-RAY-lee-oh). Italian and Spanish form of Aurelius, the Roman family name built on aureus, golden. Behind the Name, on Aurelius
• Flavio (FLAH-vee-oh). Italian and Spanish form of Flavius, the Roman family name taken from flavus, yellow or golden. Behind the Name, on Flavius
• Xanthe (ZAN-thee). From Greek xanthos, yellow or blond; a few minor figures in Greek myth bore the name. Behind the Name

Flowers and spice

• Marigold. Orange or yellow flower called Mary's gold in Middle English, after the Virgin Mary, though golde there already meant the plant, not the metal. Wiktionary
• Saffron. The spice and its yellow-orange color, via Old French from Arabic zaʿfarān, probably from Persian for gold leaves. Behind the Name

Yellow in other languages, and in the sky

• Amarillo (ah-mah-REE-yoh). Spanish for yellow, and also the Texas Panhandle city nicknamed Yellow City. SpanishDict, Wikipedia
• Rubio (ROO-byoh). Spanish for blond, the masculine form. SpanishDict
• Rubia (ROO-byah). Feminine of Spanish rubio, blond. In Spain it is also old slang for the peseta. SpanishDict
• Wezen. A rare yellow supergiant in Canis Major, the Greater Dog; the name comes from Arabic for weight. Jim Kaler, Stars

Brown and chocolate dog names

What makes a dog brown?

Two faulty copies of a gene called TYRP1 turn black pigment brown. All 43 brown dogs in the first study carried two or more of the variants, and none of the 34 dogs in the black group did (Schmutz et al., 2002). Chocolate and liver are breed terms for that brown, and in Dobermans and Australian Shepherds, the same brown is called red. A genetically brown dog has a brown nose (Schmutz), so a black nose rules it out.

Do chocolate Labs live shorter lives?

In UK vet records they did, by 1.4 years: a median of 10.7 years against 12.1 for other Labs. Chocolate Labs also had more ear infections (23.4 percent against 12.8 for black) and more hot spots (McGreevy et al., 2018). The lifespan figure rests on only 34 chocolate deaths and shows an association, not a cause. The lead author's reduced-gene-pool explanation is a hypothesis, and he has said the result may not hold in Australian Labs (University of Sydney).

Brown dog names to start with

Hazel, Peanut and Brownie all run at 2.7 to 2.9 times their overall rate on brown dogs in Austin. The most common name is Coco, with 25, which we've left off: it's a film, the nickname of a fashion designer and, as cocô in Portuguese, a child's word for poop.

• Hazel. Old English haesel is behind both the tree and the light brown shade. Parents only began using it as a first name in the 1800s. Behind the Name
• Peanut. Pea plus nut, possibly reshaped from the Southern word pinda. It's a legume from South America, not a true nut. Wiktionary
• Brownie. Brown plus a diminutive ending, used for the baked square and for a small folklore spirit, originally Scots. Wiktionary
• Coffee. Reached English through Dutch koffie, Italian caffe and Ottoman kahve, ending at Arabic qahwa. A well-traveled word for a dark dog. Wiktionary
• Penny. Two roots: a short form of Penelope, or the copper coin. Only the coin has anything to do with the color. Behind the Name

Chocolate Lab names and brown dogs from history and books

• Buddy. President Clinton's chocolate Lab puppy, adopted in 1997 and named for a great-uncle who trained dogs for 50 years. Clinton Presidential Library
• Liver. The old breeder's word for chocolate: liver-colored Lab pups are on record at the Buccleuch kennels in 1892. Wikipedia
• Dumpy. The brown stray who followed a banker to church around 1900 and became forefather of the Boykin Spaniel. American Kennel Club
• Judy. A liver-and-white pointer, mascot of the gunboat HMS Gnat, who was listed as an official prisoner of war in World War II and later received the Dickin Medal. UK Ministry of Defence
• Toby. The dog Sherlock Holmes borrows to follow a scent in The Sign of the Four, a long-haired spaniel-lurcher cross in brown and white who walks with a clumsy waddle. Project Gutenberg
• Togo. Leonhard Seppala's lead sled dog, dark brown with cream, black and gray markings, who covered the longest stretch of the 1925 serum run. National Park Service

Food and drink

• Chocolate. Through Spanish from Nahuatl chocolatl, whose exact origin is still uncertain. A plain description of a chocolate Lab. Wiktionary
• Mocha (MOH-kuh). Takes its name from a Yemeni port on the Red Sea, a major coffee marketplace under the Ottomans. Wiktionary
• Cappuccino. Viennese coffee drinkers saw a Capuchin friar's habit in its dark brown, and the name followed. Cappy for everyday use. Wiktionary
• Pumpernickel. Westphalian bread named with the local words for 'fart' and 'rascal'. Honest, if you've ever lived with a Lab. Wiktionary
• Gravy. Middle English, probably from greaves, the sediment of melted tallow, or else from Old French. Not elegant, but no dog has complained. Wiktionary
• Pecan (pih-KAHN). An Algonquian word, maybe Miami-Illinois pakani, that reached English through French. Wiktionary

Wood, earth and pigment

• Hickory. A hardwood tree with a name cut down from pockerchicory, itself from Powhatan pawcohiccora. Wiktionary
• Umber. A brown clay darker than ochre. French called it terre d'ombre, and the shadow in it goes back to Latin umbra. Wiktionary
• Sepia (SEE-pee-uh). Named for the cuttlefish, whose secretions make this dark brown pigment. The word came through Latin from Greek. Wiktionary

Given names tied to brown

Duncan appears on black-dog lists as "dark warrior". It belongs here.

• Duncan. Scottish Gaelic Donnchadh, from Old Irish donn, 'brown', and cath, 'battle'. It's a brown name, not a dark one. Behind the Name
• Donovan. Irish O Donndubhain, built from donn, 'brown', and dubh, 'black'. One name for a very dark chocolate dog. Wiktionary
• Bronson. English surname meaning 'son of the brown one'. Good if the parents were brown too. Behind the Name
• Bruna (BROO-nah). Feminine form of Bruno, from Old German brun, brown, or brunna, armor. Used in Italy, Portugal and Croatia. Behind the Name, on Bruno

Brown from stories and the stars

• Bruin (BROO-in). The bear in Reynard the Fox, named for his brown color; Caxton brought the Dutch word into English in 1485. Wiktionary
• Orson. Norman nickname from ors, 'bear', with a diminutive ending, from Latin ursus. Behind the Name
• Callisto (kuh-LIS-toh). Companion of Artemis turned into a bear, then set among the stars as Ursa Major. Callie for short. Theoi
• Teide (TAY-day). Teide 1 was the first brown dwarf ever confirmed, found in the Pleiades. The word also names Tenerife's volcano. Wikipedia

Brown in other languages

• Noisette (nwah-ZET). French for hazelnut, noix plus a little -ette. In a French cafe it's also espresso with a little milk. Wiktionary
• Canela (kah-NEH-lah). Spanish for cinnamon, the spice and, as an adjective, the color. SpanishDict
• Canelo (kah-NEH-loh). The masculine form: a cinnamon tree as a noun, golden brown as an adjective. SpanishDict's own example for the color is a golden retriever's coat. SpanishDict
• Chairo (CHAH-ee-roh). Japanese 茶色 for brown, written with the characters for tea and color. Jisho
• Kuri (KOO-ree). Japanese 栗, the Japanese chestnut. Two syllables and round-sounding, like the nut. Jisho

Black-and-white dog names

Why does the white usually show on the chest and feet?

Because pigment cells often don't get that far. They migrate from the back during development, and the feet, chest, muzzle and tail are the farthest points (Strain, 2015). Black-and-white is two separate traits: a black base coat, plus white spotting tied to a gene called MITF (Karlsson et al., 2007). More white can mean more hearing risk within a breed. Parti-colored English Cockers were deaf 5.6 percent of the time, against 1.4 percent of solid ones, though the solid group was small (Strain, LSU).

Black-and-white dog names to start with

The most common name on these dogs in Austin is Oreo, with 72 of 4,303. It's a cookie brand, so it stays out of our list. Panda (5.2 times its overall rate) and Domino (5.1) sit further above their usual rates than Oreo does (4.4).

• Panda. Probably from a Himalayan name for the red panda, recorded in Nepal and Sikkim; the giant panda took the word later. Wiktionary
• Domino. Now the dotted tile, but first a hooded costume; the word goes back to Latin dominus, lord. Wiktionary
• Tuxedo. Village first, jacket second: Tuxedo Park, New York, named the suit, and its own name is probably Lenape for crooked river. Wiktionary
• Dot. A small round spot, from Old English dott, and separately a classic short form of Dorothy. Behind the Name, Wiktionary
• Bronwen (BRON-wen). Welsh bron, breast, plus gwen, white, seemingly; in use in Wales since the 1800s and a fair fit for a black dog with a white chest. Behind the Name
• Gomashio (goh-mah-SHEE-oh). Japanese sesame and salt seasoning; the same word describes dark hair streaked with gray, or salt and pepper. Jisho

Birds and animals

• Magpie. Chatterbox plus bird: Mag, short for Margaret, was slang for a talker, and pie was already the bird's name. Wiktionary
• Urraca (oo-RRAH-kah). Spanish for magpie, with a second sense of chatterbox, so it suits a talker. SpanishDict
• Piebald. Pie, meaning magpie, plus bald, meaning marked with white patches: a coat word that describes itself. Wiktionary
• Penguin. Welsh pen gwyn, white head, is one guess at the origin and Latin pinguis, fat, another. The word first meant the great auk of the north. Wiktionary
• Cebra (SEH-brah). Spanish for zebra, and in parts of Latin America the same word covers a pedestrian crossing. SpanishDict
• Badger. In Middle English the name meant marked by a badge; the badge is the white blaze on its face. Wiktionary
• Holstein (HOHL-steen). Dairy cow in black and white splotches, named for a German region whose name means roughly wood dwellers. Wiktionary
• Orca. The largest of the dolphins, and unmistakably black and white; Latin orca meant a whale, or a large cask. NOAA Fisheries, Wiktionary

Black-and-white dogs from history and books

This coat has some of the best stories.

• Checkers. Richard Nixon's cocker spaniel, black and white and spotted in his own words, sent from Texas and named by six-year-old Tricia in 1952. PBS
• Chaser. A black-and-white border collie in Spartanburg, South Carolina, who learned the names of 1,022 toys from psychologist John Pilley. Wofford College
• Pickles. A black and white collie who found the stolen World Cup trophy, wrapped in newspaper beside a parked car in south London, in March 1966. Wikipedia
• Bummer. A black and white Newfoundland mix in 1860s San Francisco, named for begging along Montgomery Street, who fought off a bigger dog to save a lame stray named Lazarus and slept beside him to keep him warm. KQED
• Boatswain. The dog Lord Byron called a Newfoundland, shown black and white in a portrait at Newstead Abbey, where Byron raised a marble monument and epitaph over his grave. Crede Byron
• Luath. Robert Burns's own dog, written into his poem The Twa Dogs with a white breast, a glossy black back and an upward-curling tail. Project Gutenberg
• Pilot. Mr. Rochester's great dog in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, long-haired and lion-like, whose black and white coat stands out among the trees. Project Gutenberg
• Bob. Charles Darwin's large black and white half-bred retriever, the dog behind the hot-house face story in Darwin's book on the expression of emotions. Project Gutenberg
• Flossy. Anne Bronte's black and white King Charles spaniel, a gift from her young pupils in 1843 and her walking partner on the Haworth moors. Anne Bronte site
• Rob. A black and white collie-retriever farm dog from Shropshire, credited with service alongside the SAS in World War II, who received the Dickin Medal in 1945. Forces News
• Landseer. Black-and-white Newfoundlands carry the name of painter Edwin Landseer, who painted them; the usage dates to at least 1896. Wikipedia
• Dominic. Late Latin for of the Lord. By tradition Saint Dominic's mother dreamed of a white and black dog, which Dominicans read as Domini canes, dogs of the Lord. Dominican Friars, Behind the Name
• Gytrash (guy-TRASH). North-of-England spirit from Jane Eyre, loose on lonely roads as a horse, mule or large dog. The dog Jane takes for one is black and white. Project Gutenberg

Red dog names

What makes a dog red?

It depends on the breed. An Irish Setter is the deep end of the same red-yellow pigment that makes a yellow Lab (Slavney et al., 2021). A red Doberman or red Australian Shepherd is something else: genetically brown (Schmutz). Red is also where Austin owners are most literal. The name Red is 14 times more common on red dogs than on dogs overall, the strongest signal in the whole data set.

Red dog names to start with

• Red. From Old English read, the color; typically a nickname for someone with red hair or a ruddy face. Behind the Name
• Rusty. Began as a nickname for a person with reddish-brown hair, and is just as accurate on a dog. Behind the Name
• Ruby. Gem name from Latin rubeus, red. Ruby is also one of the four recognized Cavalier King Charles Spaniel colors. Behind the Name, Wikipedia
• Ginger. The spice and its reddish-brown color, or short for Virginia. Walter Scott was given a Dandie Dinmont called Ginger. Behind the Name, American Kennel Club

Given names that mean red

• Rufus. A Latin nickname for redheads, used in Rome and later given to England's King William II. Winston Churchill's chocolate-brown miniature poodle wore it too, and was gently told he had not been asked to join the Cabinet. Behind the Name, Lapham's Quarterly
• Rory. Ireland's last high king bore its old form, Ruaidhrí, which joins words for red and king. Behind the Name
• Russell. Little red one, in effect: rous was Old French for red, and this Norman surname shrinks it. Behind the Name
• Roy. Gaelic ruadh, red, in English spelling. People often hear French roi, king, in it, but the meaning is red. Behind the Name, on ruadh
• Rowan. Anglicized Ruadhán, little red one. It can also mean the rowan tree, a separate Norse word with a distant red root. Behind the Name, on Ruadhán
• Flynn. Flann, blood red, was an Irish byname that a 9th-century high king carried; the surname Ó Floinn, and so Flynn, comes from it. Behind the Name, on Flann
• Clancy. Irish surname, Mac Fhlannchaidh, from Flannchadh, a given name meaning red warrior. Behind the Name
• Phoenix. The firebird of Egyptian and Greek myth; the bird's name comes from Greek phoinix, dark red. Behind the Name
• Garnet. January's birthstone; the word traces to Middle English gernet, dark red. Behind the Name
• Sienna. An orange-red color word, named for the clay around the city of Siena in Italy. Behind the Name
• Akane (ah-KAH-neh). Japanese for deep red and for the dye made from the rubia, or madder, plant. Behind the Name

Red color words

• Auburn. Now reddish brown, but it began as yellowish white, then drifted after people confused it with the word brown. Wiktionary
• Sorrel. Brown with a red tint, from Middle French sor, yellowish or reddish brown; a different word from the sour-leaved plant. Wiktionary
• Paprika. Red spice; a Hungarian word from Serbo-Croatian, going back through Latin piper to the Greek for pepper. Wiktionary

Red in other languages, plus one fox

• Rua (ROO-uh). Irish for red-haired or copper brown. The Irish for fox is madra rua, literally red-haired dog. Wiktionary
• Rosso (ROHS-soh). Italian for red, including red or ginger hair, from Latin russus. Wiktionary
• Rojo (ROH-hoh). Spanish for red; Roja is the feminine form if you have a girl. SpanishDict
• Cobre (KOH-breh). Spanish for copper, the metal and the warm reddish shade named after it. SpanishDict
• Momiji (moh-MEE-jee). Japanese for maple and for the red leaves of autumn. Jisho
• Reynard (REN-ard). The fox's name in medieval European folklore, from Germanic words for counsel and hard. French renard, fox, comes from it. Wiktionary

Real red dogs, and one from a book

• Timahoe. Nixon's Irish setter, King Timahoe, named for the hamlet in Ireland where Nixon's ancestors came from and trained in Spanish by the president's valet. Richard Nixon Library, American Kennel Club
• Elcho. An Irish setter imported to the US, who became the first of his breed to win an American championship. National Purebred Dog Day, American Kennel Club
• Sailor. Male pup from the 1807 shipwreck rescue, his coat described as dingy red; a traditional founder of the Chesapeake Bay retriever. American Chesapeake Club
• Tiny Tim. Calvin Coolidge's red chow puppy, a birthday gift who apparently shared the president's Fourth of July birthday and, by some accounts, earned the nickname Terrible Tim. Presidential Pet Museum
• Lad. The collie hero of Albert Payson Terhune's 1919 stories, his shaggy coat mahogany flecked with orange above a snow-white ruff and chest. Project Gutenberg

Gray, blue and silver dog names

Why are gray dogs called blue?

Blue is breeders' word for diluted black. A recessive trait traced to a gene called MLPH clumps the pigment, which turns black into a silvery blue-gray and red or brown into a sandy fawn (Philipp et al., 2005). Most Weimaraners are diluted brown rather than diluted black, which is why they look different from a slate-gray dog (Schmutz). Kerry Blue Terriers are another case entirely: born black, they clear to blue-gray, and AKC disqualifies one still black at 18 months (AKC).

Dilute coats sometimes come with an inherited, cosmetic hair loss in the blue or fawn areas, usually starting before age 1 (Merck Veterinary Manual). It varies sharply by breed, common in blue Dobermans and uncommon in Weimaraners (University of Minnesota).

Is a silver Lab purebred?

The Labrador Retriever Club says no, though it also says it can't conclusively prove a Weimaraner cross (Labrador Retriever Club). AKC's standard names only black, yellow and chocolate and disqualifies any other color (AKC), so a silver dog can hold papers and still fail the show standard.

Gray dog names to start with

Blue is the top name for gray dogs in Austin (12 of 356, 5.4 times its overall rate), and Rover names Blu, the other spelling, as its most popular color-based dog name (Rover).

• Blue. Breeders' blue is diluted black. In Pinschers, the dogs this study looked at, a recessive trait turns black fur silvery gray. Philipp et al., 2005
• Smoky. American soldiers found this Yorkie abandoned in a New Guinea foxhole in 1944. Her smoky-gray fur gave her the name. US Army MWR
• Smoke. Old English smoca, and one syllable shorter than Smoky if you'd like a quicker call name. Wiktionary
• Silver. From Old English seolfor, and given as a name for both the precious metal and the color. Behind the Name

Named for gray and blue breeds

• Kerry. Kerry Blue puppies arrive black and can take up to 18 months to clear to blue-gray. American Kennel Club
• Lacy. The Blue Lacy, Texas's official state dog breed since 2005, is named for four brothers who came from Kentucky in 1858. Wikipedia
• Weimar (VY-mar). German town that gave the Weimaraner its name, a breed developed by its Grand Duke, in blue, gray or silver gray. American Kennel Club

Stone, metal and ash

• Ash. What's left in the grate after a fire. The name can also come from the tree, or just shorten Ashley. Behind the Name
• Flint. Strike this hard quartz against steel and it sparks. Wiktionary
• Nickel. Metal named from German Kupfernickel: Kupfer, copper, plus Nickel, a goblin. Also the US five-cent coin. Wiktionary

Gray from myth and the stars

• Aello (ay-EL-oh). Means 'Storm': a hound good at running in Actaeon's pack in Ovid. Less obvious than calling a gray dog Stormy. Ovid, Riley translation
• Selkie (SEL-kee). Scots seal folk: a seal who can shed her skin and become human. In Scotland and Shetland the word also covers the real gray seal. Wiktionary
• Adhara (uh-DAIR-uh). The second-brightest star in Canis Major, the great dog constellation, and a blue one. The name comes from the Arabic for 'virgins'. Wikipedia

Given names, and two that only sound gray

• Lloyd. Welsh llwyd, 'gray', became a surname and then a first name. That odd double L is the Welsh word showing through. Behind the Name
• Arianwen (ar-YAN-wen). A 5th-century Welsh saint's name, from arian, 'silver', and gwen, 'white, blessed'. Wen for short. Behind the Name
• Ulf. Old Norse Ulfr, 'wolf', and in use today in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Germany. Behind the Name
• Sterling. Partly a trap: first a Scots surname from the city of Stirling, meaning unknown. Only sterling silver, 'little star', gets near silver. Behind the Name
• Grayson. Sounds gray, isn't. The surname means 'son of the steward', from Middle English greyve. Behind the Name

Gray and blue in other languages

• Liath (LEE-uh). One Irish word covers gray, light blue and gray-haired, so it fits a blue coat or a dog going silver. Wiktionary
• Grigio (GREE-joh). The Italian color word, a Frankish loan that reached Italy through Old French or Old Occitan. Wiktionary
• Azul (ah-SOOL). Spanish for blue, the word to use if your gray dog is a blue on paper. SpanishDict
• Ao (AH-oh). Japanese 青, blue or azure. It also covers green and, oddly, a black horse's coat. Jisho

Real gray dogs and gray dogs from books

• Greyfriars Bobby. The Edinburgh terrier said to have guarded his master's grave for 14 years; Eleanor Atkinson's novel makes him slate gray with a frost of silver. Wikipedia, Project Gutenberg
• Kazan. The quarter-wolf sled dog of James Oliver Curwood's 1914 novel, given a gray nose, a big gray body and a tawny spine. Project Gutenberg
• Maida. Sir Walter Scott's old staghound at Abbotsford; Washington Irving remembered a large iron-gray hound of grave manners greeting him on arrival. Project Gutenberg
• Owney. A shaggy terrier of unknown pedigree who rode the mail cars as mascot of the railway mail clerks; an 1893 newspaper profile gave his color as a mix of gray, yellow and black. Genealogy Trails

Brindle dog names

What makes a brindle coat?

A middle version of a gene called K lays black stripes over a yellow base. The order of dominance runs black, then brindle, then yellow, so a black dog can carry brindle without showing it. Two copies of the recessive yellow MC1R gene erase it too, which means a yellow dog can also carry it unseen (Kerns et al., 2007). AKC's Boxer standard accepts only fawn and brindle (AKC), and its Great Dane standard describes the stripes as a chevron pattern on yellow gold (AKC).

Brindle dog names to start with

Tiger is the most common name on brindle dogs in Austin, with 28 of 1,811, and it's about 10 times more common on brindle than on dogs overall. Owners also reach for tough names here: Tank runs at 4 times its overall rate.

• Tiger. The striped cat, through Old French and Latin from Greek tigris, which is ultimately of Iranian origin. Behind the Name
• Tigre (TEE-greh). Spanish for tiger, and in Latin America the word also covers the jaguar. SpanishDict
• Tank. First a water container, from Portuguese and likely Gujarati or Marathi. Armored prototypes were called tanks as a disguise. Wiktionary
• Moose. From an Eastern Algonquian word meaning roughly 'it strips', for how the animal strips tree bark. Wiktionary
• Dozer. Short for bulldozer, which meant a bully in 1875 Louisiana before it ever meant the machine. Wiktionary
• Bruno. Old German, from brun, 'brown', or brunna, 'armor, protection'. So brown is one of two candidates, not a sure thing. Behind the Name

The tiger dog of Japan

• Tora (TOH-rah). The Kai Ken, Japan's brindle breed, is also called the Tora Inu, or tiger dog. Wikipedia
• Kai (kye). The Kai Ken comes from the Kai region of Yamanashi, Japan, and its coat comes in shades of brindle. Wikipedia
• Kurotora (koo-roh-TOH-rah). Kuro-tora is the black shade of Kai Ken brindle; the other two shades are red and middle. Wikipedia
• Akatora (ah-kah-TOH-rah). Aka-tora is the red shade of Kai Ken brindle, for a dog with warm color between the stripes. Wikipedia

Old words and old books

• Brindle. Back-formed from brindled, itself a variant of the older brinded, 'streaked, spotted'. Attested since the late 1600s. Wiktionary
• Brinded. Shakespeare's spelling: the First Witch opens the cauldron scene in Macbeth by counting a brinded cat's mews. Project Gutenberg
• Tigris (TY-gris). Means 'Tiger': a hound in Actaeon's pack in Ovid. Someone was naming dogs after tigers long before now. Ovid, Riley translation

Brindle breeds and real brindle dogs

• Plott. North Carolina's state dog, known for its brindle coat and named for the family who brought boarhounds from Germany around 1750. Wikipedia
• Tennessee. The Treeing Tennessee Brindle, developed from the 1960s by Reverend Earl Phillips, comes in brindle or black with brindle trim. Wikipedia
• Sallie. A brindle bull terrier, mascot of the 11th Pennsylvania, who followed the men on marches and is honored on the regiment's monument at Gettysburg. City of Alexandria
• Stubby. A brindle-patterned stray who wandered onto the Yale training field in 1917 and became the 102nd Infantry's unofficial mascot through World War I. US Army MWR

Merle dog names

What makes a dog merle?

An insertion in a gene called PMEL, named SILV in this paper, dilutes the pigment in patches. It tracked merle through 50 Shetland Sheepdogs plus Collies, Border Collies, Australian Shepherds, Cardigan Corgis, Dachshunds and Great Danes, and was absent in 29 dogs from 26 non-merle breeds (Clark et al., 2006).

Are merle dogs deaf?

Single merles rarely are. Double merles, with two copies, are the real concern. In hearing tests of 153 merle dogs, 3.5 percent of single merles were deaf in at least one ear against 25 percent of double merles (Strain et al., 2009). An older study of 44 Dachshunds also found severe eye defects in its 11 double merles (Dausch et al., 1978). On average, a quarter of the pups from a merle-to-merle mating are double merle, which is why AKC advises against it (AKC) and the Royal Kennel Club won't register them (Royal Kennel Club).

The word merle

Merle the first name and merle the coat are two different words, and only one is a bird.

• Merle. The given name means blackbird, from Latin merula. The coat word is separate; Scots dictionaries file blue merle under mirl, to speckle. Behind the Name, Scots Language dictionaries
• Mirlie (MUR-lee). Scots for speckled or dappled, recorded as a name for a mottled cow; blue merle sits in the same word family. Scots Language dictionaries
• Merel. Dutch for blackbird, a given name in the Netherlands and a soft twist on Merle. Behind the Name
• Merlot (mer-LOH). French wine grape; the name is a diminutive of merle, so little blackbird, with no link to the coat word. Wiktionary

Blue merle names

Austin owners don't really name for this coat: Luna (8), Blue (7) and Lucy (7) lead a small field of 498.

• Bleu (BLUH). French for blue, and also the word for very rare steak, which a dog would approve of. Wiktionary
• Aoi (ah-OH-ee). Japanese unisex name that can mean hollyhock, or blue or green, depending on the written character. Behind the Name
• Cobalt. Harz silver miners' word for arsenic-laced rock that made them ill, apparently the same as German Kobold, goblin; also short for cobalt blue. Wiktionary
• Cyane (SY-uh-nee). Sicilian spring nymph of Greek myth whose name Theoi translates as azure-blue. Theoi
• Rigel (RY-jel). Blue-white supergiant in Orion; the name comes from Arabic for foot, handy for a dog with flashy paws. Jim Kaler, Stars

Mottled and marbled

• Catahoula (kat-uh-HOO-luh). Louisiana's state dog since 1979, named for Catahoula Parish; the leopard-like coat of most Catahoulas comes from the merle gene. Wikipedia
• Dapple. What Dachshund people call merle. The word's own origin is uncertain, perhaps from dapple-gray in horses. Wikipedia, Wiktionary
• Marble. Swirled stone, from Greek. The Scots word marled, mottled or streaked, is a contraction of marble. Wiktionary, on marble
• Harlequin. The merle gene helps produce harlequin Great Danes. The word traces to a stage servant and, earlier, a medieval demon. Wikipedia, Wiktionary
• Opal. October's iridescent birthstone, ultimately from Sanskrit upala, jewel. Behind the Name

Real blue merle champions

• Blue Ruin. Mr. Arkwright's blue merle collie, the first of that color to win the Collie Club Challenge Trophy, in 1888. Rough Collie Breed Council
• Minoru. Westcarrs Blue Minoru, the first blue merle male to win the Collie Club Challenge Trophy, taking Best in Show at the British Collie Club in 1955. Rough Collie Breed Council

Spotted and Dalmatian dog names

Why are Dalmatians born white?

They typically carry two copies of the extreme white spotting variant, which gives the white background. Their spots don't start showing until about two weeks and can keep developing past a year (AKC). Color present at birth is a patch, not a spot, and the AKC standard disqualifies patches (AKC). Under the white, a Dalmatian with black spots is a genetically black dog, in the words of the Stanford geneticist who led the team that found the black gene (Stanford Medicine). All 262 Dalmatians in one 2021 study carried a duplication linked to roan, and its authors propose that this works with a gene not yet identified to make the spots (Kawakami et al., 2021).

Are Dalmatians often deaf?

Yes. In Strain's US testing, 28 percent of 6,249 Dalmatians were deaf in at least one ear, and 7.3 percent in both. European studies run lower, from 16.5 to 19.6 percent (Strain, LSU). Blue eyes go with more deafness and patches with less, while black or liver spots make no difference (Strain, 2004).

What are good names for a Dalmatian?

• Pepper. For the black specks on a white coat. The word came through Old English from Latin piper and, before that, Greek. Wiktionary
• Pudding. Plum Pudding Dog is one of the Dalmatian's other names, along with Carriage Dog and Firehouse Dog. Wikipedia
• Stracciatella (strah-chah-TEL-lah). Italian gelato flecked with chocolate, from stracciare, to rip up. It is the Dalmatian of ice creams. Wiktionary
• Macchiato (mah-kee-AH-toh). Italian for stained: espresso marked with a spot of milk, from Latin macula, a stain. Wiktionary

Freckles and spots

• Freckles. A White House beagle born in 1965, with a mostly white snout and small spots on it, so the name was simply accurate. LBJ Presidential Library
• Pecosa (peh-KOH-sah). Spanish for freckly, and Luci Johnson's first name for the beagle who became Freckles. SpanishDict, LBJ Library
• Pecas (PEH-kahs). Spanish plural meaning freckles, from peca, one freckle. As a verb it also means you sin. SpanishDict
• Manchas (MAHN-chahs). Spanish for spots or stains, the plural of mancha, the same word used for a jaguar's spots. SpanishDict

Spots in other languages

• Hoshi (HOH-shee). Japanese for star, and the same word also means a dot, spot or fleck. Jisho
• Buchi (BOO-chee). Japanese for spots, speckles or mottling, usually written in kana. Jisho
• Brith (BREETH). Welsh adjective for mottled, speckled or brindled, and also used of gray hair. Wiktionary
• Breac (BRAK). Irish for speckled or spotted; as a noun the same word means a trout. Wiktionary
• Pallino (pahl-LEE-noh). Italian for a dot in a pattern, and also the small target ball in bowls. Wiktionary

Myth, words and spotted dogs from history

• Argus (AR-gus). Greek giant with eyes all over his body; his hundred eyes ended up on the peacock's tail. Theoi
• Balius (BAY-lee-us). Immortal horse of Achilles; Theoi translates the name as piebald, a word for a patched coat. Theoi
• Belton. Word coined by breeder Edward Laverack for an English setter's flecked coat; Belton is also a village in northern England. Wikipedia
• Polka. Polka dots are named for the dance, whose own name comes from Czech for half, as in half-step. Wiktionary, on polka
• Cheetah. From Hindi, ultimately Sanskrit for speckled plus body, so the name literally means spotted body. Wiktionary
• Giddy. A polka-dotted greyhound given to Queen Victoria by Lord Lurgan in 1873, the year the photographers Hills & Saunders took her portrait. Royal Central
• Strelka (STRYEL-kah). Russian for arrow. This space dog, white with chocolate patches, flew with Belka in 1960. Wikipedia, Business Insider

Cream, tan and fawn dog names

What makes a dog tan or fawn?

Mostly a gene called agouti, which decides where and when hairs switch between black and yellow pigment. Its variants combine into five patterns, and the old breeder terms overlap them: fawn can mean dominant or shaded yellow, sable can mean those two or agouti, and tan points means black back (Bannasch et al., 2021). Cream can come from a separate gene, MFSD12, that dilutes red-yellow pigment toward white and leaves black alone (Hedan et al., 2019).

The dominant yellow pattern has an unusually long history. Part of its DNA probably came from an extinct canid that split from gray wolves more than 2 million years ago, and white Arctic wolves carry a nearly identical stretch (Bannasch et al., 2021). Yellow Labs and Goldens get their color through MC1R, so that story isn't theirs.

Tan dog names

The name standing out most on tan dogs in Austin is Canela, Spanish for cinnamon, at 3.8 times its overall rate. It's listed with the brown names.

• Tawny. Light brown to brownish orange, from Anglo-Norman and Old French tané. Spelled Tawnie, it's among the hound names in Arthur Golding's 1567 English Ovid. Wiktionary, Names journal
• Tanner. English surname meaning one who tans hides. Behind the Name
• Khaki (KAK-ee). Dull yellow-brown, via Urdu and Hindi from a Persian word meaning dusty or earth-colored. Wiktionary
• Cashew. From French acajou, ultimately a Tupi word from Brazil; the first letter was mistaken for the article a. Wiktionary
• Fulvia. Feminine of the Roman family name Fulvius, from Latin fulvus, yellow or tawny. Behind the Name, on Fulvio
• Oran. Anglicized Odhrán, from Old Irish odar, dun or tan, plus a diminutive: roughly little tan one. Behind the Name, on Odhrán
• Kinako (kee-NAH-koh). Japanese for roasted soybean flour, a word already in cookbooks of the late Muromachi period. Jisho
• Suna (SOO-nah). Japanese for sand, grit or fine gravel. Jisho
• Trigo (TREE-goh). Spanish for wheat, a color word in disguise for a wheaten dog. SpanishDict
• Sahara. The North African desert; the name is Arabic for deserts, so Sahara Desert repeats itself. Wiktionary

Fawn and cream names

• Fawn. A young deer and its pale yellow-brown color. An old sense of the word meant any young animal, even a whelp. Wiktionary
• Panna (PAHN-nah). Italian for cream, possibly from panno, cloth, because cream covers milk like one. Wiktionary
• Crema (KREH-mah). Spanish for cream, whether dairy, lotion or a smooth soup. SpanishDict
• Ecru (EH-kroo). A beige shade, borrowed from French écru, meaning raw or unbleached. Wiktionary
• Apricot. Pale yellow-orange fruit and color. Wiktionary also records it as a word for an orange-coated dog. Wiktionary
• Butterscotch. Light brown candy named for how it is cut, not for Scotland: scotch here goes back to a Middle English verb for nicking or scoring. Wiktionary

Tricolor dog names

What makes a dog tricolor?

A tricolor dog is a black-and-tan dog with white added: the tan-point agouti pattern, which puts black on top and tan on the cheeks, eyebrows and undersides (UC Davis), plus separate white spotting (Animal Genetics, Bannasch et al., 2021). Three colors seem to defeat owners. Austin's top names on tricolor dogs are Max, Rocky and Bella, and the closest thing to a color name is Oreo, at 2.3 times its overall rate.

Tricolor and black-and-tan dogs and breeds

• Dash. The spaniel Queen Victoria doted on from age 13, white with patches of black and tan. One Christmas she gave him two pieces of gingerbread. Unofficial Royalty
• Old Hemp. The Northumberland sheepdog born in 1893, regarded as the foundation sire of the border collie, a tricolor with little white on him. Wikipedia
• Skip. A short-legged mongrel terrier in black and tan, one of Theodore Roosevelt's favorites, who came home with him from a Colorado bear hunt. Princeton Magazine
• Old Drum. A black and tan hunting hound in 1860s Missouri, the dog behind the famous Eulogy of the Dog, and since 2017 the state's official historical dog. Johnson County history
• Senn. What Alpine herdsmen and dairymen were called. Sennenhund, 'dog of the Senn', covers the four Swiss mountain breeds and their tricolor coats. American Kennel Club
• Swissy. The everyday nickname for the Greater Swiss Mountain Dog, one of the four tricolor Sennenhunde breeds. American Kennel Club

Things that come in threes

• Cerberus (SUR-ber-us). Hades's three-headed hound, so a head for each color on your dog. Theoi's gloss of the name, 'death-darkness', carries its own question mark. Theoi
• Clover. A plant whose leaves are usually divided into three leaflets, rarely four. Wiktionary
• Neapolitan (nee-uh-POL-ih-tan). The ice cream of chocolate, vanilla and strawberry, which is roughly a tricolor dog in dessert form. Wiktionary
• Thalia (THAY-lee-uh). One of the three Graces of Greek myth, from a Greek verb meaning 'to blossom'. Behind the Name

Patchwork words

• Motley. Old English mot, 'speck', sits at the bottom of this word for having many colors. Anglo-Norman supplied the parti-colored sense. Wiktionary
• Patch. A hound in Arthur Golding's 1567 English Ovid. A 1585 list glosses Ovid's hound Sticte as 'pied coat, or patcht'. Names journal

Three in other languages

• Tres (trehs). Spanish for three, and also the third of the month in dates. SpanishDict
• Sanshoku (sahn-SHOH-koo). Japanese 三色, three colors, about as literal as a name gets. It's long, so Sansho for short. Jisho

Coat color myths, checked

Do dogs know their names?

Many do, and they can pick them out of noise. In a University of Maryland study, a stranger said a dog's name or another dog's name over background speech at equal volume, and dogs listened longer to their own: 7.52 seconds against 5.27. With noise 5 decibels louder, that group showed no preference, though it showed none in quiet either (Mallikarjun et al., 2019). The famous word-learners are outliers (Fugazza et al., 2021). Chaser, the border collie in the list above, learned 1,022 object names, but it took three years of intensive training (Pilley and Reid, 2011).

Which names do dogs hear best?

Short ones, according to trainers rather than experiments. AKC favors a call name of two syllables ending in a vowel, because it's easy to hear and lets you vary your tone (AKC). It also warns against names close to cues or to other household names, such as Kit (too near sit) and Moe or Joe (too near no). We applied that test to this list, which is why you won't find Snow, Soot or Slate. A long name works fine with a short call name: Mel for Melaneus, Cappy for Cappuccino.

AKC also suggests skipping the most common names, so your dog isn't one of several at the vet and another dog doesn't answer at the park. That's a good reason to look past Luna and Max. And say the name in a happy voice: in brain scans, dogs' reward areas responded more when both the word and the intonation signaled praise (Andics et al., 2016).

Can you rename a rescue dog?

Yes. AKC says dogs can learn a new name with consistent practice and encouragement (AKC). Many shelter dogs are wearing a name staff picked anyway. In Austin's records, an asterisk marks 31.4 percent of adoption records and just 1.9 percent of return-to-owner records (City of Austin).

If you're also naming for the season, our Christmas dog names list has more sourced names, and the dog quotes post traces each line to who said it. Got a cat too? The same treatment is in cat names by color, and horse names does it for bays, chestnuts, palominos and Appaloosas. Shopping for a dog person instead? Start with gifts for dog moms, or have your dog stitched onto a sweatshirt with custom pet embroidery. To see your dog painted instead, look at the decorated general or the crowned monarch.

Give the name a portrait

Upload one photo of your dog, pick a look, from a crowned monarch to a starry swirl painting, and see the proof before you decide anything. Then choose a puzzle, canvas, framed print or blanket.

Free proofFree US shipping

Start with your dog's photo

Your photo is deleted within 24 hours of fulfillment and is never used to train AI.

Frequently asked questions