My sister got a cat and is soliciting names. It's brown and black and I asked in patches or tortoiseshell? and she told me more striated, like a bad dye job. Also it has a loud purr. I can't think of any cat names, though I did come across the term "prune whip" the other day and immediately begin to itch because I am sure that a cat in a children's book somewhere is named Prunewhip.
The thing that amuses me about this is that the last time (that I remember) someone asked for help finding cat names was a coworker in September 1996. I typed "cat names" into my search engine of the day--Alta Vista?--and came across Bryon Sutherland's Semi-Existence of Bryon. Bam! Online journals. Bryon, opheliaZ, Tracy Lee, Sage, Ceej, Diane, Willa, Jen Wade.
Anyway. I reminded my sister that pet names should end in -y. This is not strictly necessary, witness our dog Shadow, but mostly true. I told her about Blake's support group: "Hi. I'm Blake." "Hello, Blake!" "They named me for a Romantic poet, but they call me Blakey. Or Blakey-Jakey. It's really embarrassing. I wish they'd just named me Buddy at the start."
"Actually that should be more embarrassing for you," my sister rightfully pointed out.
Point being that among his many nicknames (which are a reason he can't say his name right, since he hears it only when I'm not calling him my bananaheaded boy), of which Buddy doesn't even count since it's nearly his actual name, the primary one is Puppybird. I'm not about to let him forget that he really should be a dog. (If I had a human child but not a dog, I'd do the same thing. That's probably illegal.)
So I suggested she name the cat Puppie.