Legend
Salem
Boy2 syllablesSuits a black coat
The sarcastic black cat from Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
Six cat names per press, drawn from 135 picks across five styles. Narrow by boy or girl and by length, star the ones worth a second look, and press Hear it to test each name out loud before the kitten comes home.
Boy2 syllablesSuits a black coat
The sarcastic black cat from Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
Any cat2 syllablesSuits a white coat
A soft Japanese rice cake. Fits a round white kitten.
Boy3 syllables
A fixture near the top of yearly US cat name lists from pet insurers.
Girl2 syllablesSuits a ginger coat
Autumn red, for a ginger or tortie.
Boy4 syllables
For the cat who chairs every meeting from the top of the fridge.
Girl2 syllables
Ends on an ee sound, which carries well when you call from the kitchen.
A name looks fine on a screen and falls apart at 11 p.m. when the cat is behind the sofa. Put every shortlisted name through these five checks. Most lists shrink to two names by step three.
Press Hear it, then say the name yourself from another room. If you trip on Purrlock Holmes by the third call, you will shorten the name within a week. Decide the short form now.
Beau and Noah sound like no. Kit sounds like sit. A cat who hears a scolding word inside the name learns to tune both out.
Two pets with the same first sound, like Milo and Mia, both come running or neither does. The same goes for children. A cat named Sophie in a house with a Sophia creates daily confusion.
Sergeant Whiskers is funny at home. Read aloud in a packed waiting room, the joke lands for the first visit and wears thin by the tenth. If the full name embarrasses you, keep a plain short form for official use.
Call the kitten by both finalists on alternate days. The one you reach for without thinking is the winner.
Cats tell their own name apart from similar-sounding words.
Saito et al., Scientific Reports, 2019
Researchers at Sophia University in Tokyo played house cats a recording of four ordinary nouns, then the cat's name. Ear and head movements faded over the four nouns, then came back at the name. Cats responded to a stranger's voice saying their name too, not only the owner's.
Cats living in a cat café did worse. The researchers point to the setting: many names called in one room, with treats going to whichever cat comes, blur the link between a name and a reward.
What this means for choosing: the sound of the name matters less than how you use it. Say the name before food, play, and a chin scratch, and never before the carrier or the pill. Popular advice says names ending in an ee sound work best. No study backs a specific ending, so pick the name you will say warmly a thousand times.
Each style is its own pool. Pick one in the bar above, or leave Any on to mix all 135 names.
Foods and treats
Kittens, round cats, and households with kids. Sweet names age well, a 15-year-old Biscuit still sounds right.
Mochi, Biscuit, Pumpkin, Marmalade, Pepper, Oreo
People names
Cats who act like small people. Human names read clearly on vet records and pet insurance forms.
Oliver, Leo, Milo, Chloe, Lily, Sophie
Puns and joke titles
Second cats and confident owners. Pair a pun with a plain short form for daily use.
Chairman Meow, Sir Pouncelot, Cat Damon, Purrlock Holmes, Kitty Purry, Fuzz Aldrin
Plants, stones, weather
Matching a name to coat color. Half the names in this pool carry a coat hint.
Willow, Sage, Ash, Storm, Pebble, Onyx
Myths, stars, stories
Big personalities and black cats. Myth and pop culture names come with a ready-made story.
Luna, Nova, Orion, Zeus, Athena, Loki
58 names in the pool carry a coat hint, shown on the tile as Suits a black coat and so on. Here is the full set, grouped by color. A ginger tabby belongs under ginger, and a tortoiseshell shares the calico list.
Pretty names for plants toxic to cats. Lily pollen alone causes kidney failure. The generator keeps Lily as a classic name with a warning on the tile, so you see the reason.
Nobody calls Leonardo DiCatprio twice. Long joke names belong on the adoption certificate, not the food bowl.
Funny for a month. You will say the name dozens of times a day for 15 years.
Luna and Oliver sit near the top of pet insurer name lists year after year. At a busy vet, three cats answer the same call.
Each press draws six names at random from every name matching your filters, using a random number from the server. Names on screen sit out the next shuffle while enough others match, so pressing twice never repeats a tile.
Narrow filter sets match few names. Funny plus Girl plus Long, for example, matches a handful. The line under the filters shows the match count before you press Shuffle.
Set For a to Boy. Classic gives Oliver, Leo, Milo, and George. Legend gives Salem, Loki, and Zeus. Short one- and two-syllable picks such as Gus and Binx are the easiest to call.
Salem, Binx, Nyx, Onyx, Sirius, Bastet, and Pawdrey Hepburn all carry a black coat hint. The full list sits in the coat color section of this page.
Most kittens turn their head to their name within a few weeks of daily use, faster when the name comes right before food. Use one name only for the first month. Nicknames come later.
Yes. Adult cats relearn a new name the same way kittens learn a first one, by hearing the name before good things. Pick a name with a similar sound to the old one and the switch goes faster.
No. The shortlist saves in this browser only. Press Copy list and paste the names into a message or note to share them.