These Japanese pet names are everyday Japanese words: foods such as Mochi (rice cake), nature words such as Sora (sky), animals, colors, cute sound words and lucky words. Each card gives the Japanese spelling and the meaning.
Read the full guide
Pick a kind of name
You can narrow the draw to one kind. Food and sweets gives Dango, Kinako and Azuki. Small and cute gives sound words such as Fuwafuwa, fluffy, and Korokoro, roly-poly. Lucky words gives Fuku, good fortune, and Takara, treasure.
How to read a card
Each name is spelled in Latin letters, with a line over a long vowel, and in Japanese script. A word written in kanji comes with its reading in kana, and a word usually written in kana comes with its kanji.
Questions and answers
What are cute Japanese pet names?
Sound words are the cutest on this list: Fuwafuwa and Mokomoko (fluffy), Punipuni (squishy) and Nikoniko (smiling). Small sweets work too, such as Mochi, Dango and Konpeitō, a small colored sugar candy.
What are cool Japanese names for pets?
Try the strong nature and animal words: Tora (tiger), Ryū (dragon), Washi (eagle), Taka (hawk), Honō (flame) and Kaze (wind). Among the colors, Kuro is black, Gin is silver and Kohaku is amber.
What does -chan mean after a pet's name?
Chan (ちゃん) is a suffix for a familiar person, in the words of the JMdict dictionary. It goes after the name: Momo-chan, Sora-chan.
Are these Japanese names for pets real words?
Yes. Every word, its reading and its meaning were looked up in JMdict, a Japanese-English dictionary file. They are words chosen as names, not a ranking of what pets in Japan are called.