Pet Owners Take Negativity Out Of COVID-19 By Naming Their Furry Friends After The Deadly Virus

Pet owners have been giving a positive spin to the negative aura of COVID-19. How, one may ask? They have been actually naming their pets after the virus.

Embracing the zeitgeist of 2020, pet owners have been dubbing their furry quarantine buddies as “Covi," “Rona” and “Corona," according to Rover. In their annual list of “The 100 most popular male and female dog names of 2020," the popularity of pandemic-inspired names has been trending with Covi – (1,159%), Rona – (69%), Corona (24%) and Covie.

The site also has a special mention of some unique names that the "paw-rents" have come up with for their cute friends. “Honorable mentions for the handful of dogs and cats named COVID and Fauci, and a very special shout-out to these two unique pets: a dog named Rona Von Covid and a cat named Dr. Fauci." Another cute name that made it to the list was Sourdough, a first-time-ever after the bread baking trend that went viral during the lockdown.

The pet adoptions too increased during the lockdown, especially in March. Rover, in its report, noted that the adoption rates soared and many New York shelters reported that they ran out of adoption pets. The Animal Care Centers of NYC (ACC) informed that it got 5,000 applications to foster pets in March alone.

Talking to the NY Post, a pet owner named Michelle told how her sister Laura and she decided to adopt a nine-month-old cockapoo in April and they came upon the name Covie for their precious pup.

“We were thinking of creative names and thought it would be kind of funny to name her after the situation that we are in,” she said. “We thought it was a fun way to remember exactly when we got her and a nice family time we had,” she told The Post.

She said how they were not happy with any other names even though they had other options. “When we picked her up, we immediately started calling her Covie and she loved it," Michelle added.

When asked if people were annoyed due to the negative connotation to the name, she said, “Yes, we had people roll their eyes and not like the name – but chose to stick with the name to remember this time.

“They think of COVID as a negative time, which it is in some areas, but we like to look at the positives, which are a lot more family time and the quality time we never got since my sister and I went off to university seven years ago."

Apart from the coronavirus-inspired names, some of the other names that the site gave a shout-out to were “Tiger King" and “Carol," after the kooky Carole Baskin.

With a reference to the pop culture phenomenon shows, there were names such as “The Witcher” and “The Mandalorian." The popularity for "The Witcher" was up by 9,308% and Mando was up by 2,658%.

Nevertheless, the top five names for male and female dogs narrated a different story in the report. Most of the pet owners stuck to traditional names. The number one female dog name was Bella, followed by Luna, Lucy, Daisy and Lola. The name that ranked the highest for male dogs was Max, followed by Charlie, Cooper, Buddy and Milo.