Literary names for pets from four shelves: animals of literature, characters and places, authors and words of the writing trade. Animal and character cards name the book, poem or legend they come from, most with its author and year.
Read the full guide
Start with the animals
After a press, the list under the button picks the shelf. Animals of literature gives Argos, the faithful dog of Odysseus, Buck of The Call of the Wild, and Grimalkin, an old word for a cat that turns up in Macbeth. Its last entry, More filters, opens For a dog and For a cat.
Why the books are all old
Every book on a card was first published before 1931, or is ancient or medieval, and is in the public domain in the United States. Characters of newer books, films and series belong to their owners, so they are left out.
Questions and answers
What are literary names for a dog?
Argos is the faithful dog of Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey. Buck is the dog of The Call of the Wild, by Jack London (1903), and Crab is the dog of the clown Launce in Shakespeare's The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
What are literary names for a cat?
Dinah is Alice's cat, and Cheshire is the grinning cat of the same book. Pangur Ban is the white cat of an Old Irish poem, Tybalt is known as the Prince of Cats, and Bartleby is the clerk who would prefer not to.
Which authors are on the list?
Authors who died long ago, by surname: Austen, Bronte, Dickens, Poe, Twain, Chaucer, Dante and Tolstoy among them, with Aesop, the teller of fables. Langston is the poet Langston Hughes and Zora is the writer Zora Neale Hurston.
AkelaThe leader of the wolf pack in The Jungle Book, by Rudyard Kipling (1894).
ArgosThe faithful dog of Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey.
BayardThe magical horse of medieval poetry who carries the four sons of Aymon.
Black BeautyThe horse of Black Beauty, by Anna Sewell (1877).
BoatswainLord Byron's Newfoundland dog, honored in his poem Epitaph to a Dog (1808).
BuckThe dog at the heart of The Call of the Wild, by Jack London (1903).
Captain FlintLong John Silver's parrot in Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson (1883).
CheshireThe grinning Cheshire Cat of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865).
CrabThe dog of the clown Launce in Shakespeare's The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
DinahAlice's cat in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll (1865).
DiogenesThe dog in Dombey and Son, by Charles Dickens (1848).
GrimalkinAn old word for a cat; a witch in Shakespeare's Macbeth calls to hers by it.
HodgeSamuel Johnson's cat, remembered in James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson (1791).
JipDora's little dog in David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens (1850).
LadThe collie of Lad: A Dog, by Albert Payson Terhune (1919).
MehitabelThe alley cat of archy and mehitabel, by Don Marquis, who first wrote of her in 1916.
MobyThe whale of Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville (1851).
MontmorencyThe dog of Three Men in a Boat, by Jerome K. Jerome (1889).
Mr. ToadMr. Toad of The Wind in the Willows (1908), who becomes obsessed with motorcars.
MurrThe tomcat who writes his own life story in a novel by E. T. A. Hoffmann (1819).
Pangur BanThe white cat of an Old Irish poem written by a monk in about the ninth century.
RattyRatty of The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame (1908), friend of Mole and Badger.
Rikki-Tikki-TaviThe mongoose of The Jungle Book, by Rudyard Kipling (1894).
RocinanteDon Quixote's horse in the novel by Miguel de Cervantes (1605).
TobermoryThe cat of the humorous short story Tobermory, by Saki.
TotoDorothy's dog in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum (1900).
White FangThe wild wolf dog of the novel White Fang, by Jack London (1906).
Characters and places 46
ArielThe airy spirit who serves Prospero in Shakespeare's The Tempest, written about 1610 to 1611.
AvonleaThe town of Anne of Green Gables, by L. M. Montgomery (1908).
BartlebyThe clerk who would prefer not to, in the story by Herman Melville (1853).
BaskervilleFrom The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Arthur Conan Doyle (1902).
BeowulfThe hero of an Old English epic poem.
BunburyThe made-up friend in The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde (1895).
CandideThe hero of Candide, or Optimism, by Voltaire (1759).
CrusoeThe castaway of Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe (1719).
DarcyMr. Darcy of Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen (1813).
DickonThe boy who spends his days out on the moors in The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1911).
DormouseThe sleepy guest of the Mad Tea-Party in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865).
ElizaEliza Doolittle of the play Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw (1913).
EnkiduThe wild man who becomes the friend of Gilgamesh in the ancient epic.
FalstaffSir John Falstaff, the knight of Shakespeare's Henry IV plays.
FoggPhileas Fogg of Around the World in Eighty Days, by Jules Verne (1872).
Friar TuckOne of Robin Hood's band in the old English legend.
GalahadA knight of King Arthur's Round Table in the medieval legends.
GatsbyJay Gatsby of The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925).
GulliverThe traveler of Gulliver's Travels, by Jonathan Swift (1726).
HeathcliffHeathcliff of Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte (1847).
HeidiThe girl of the Swiss Alps in Heidi, by Johanna Spyri (1881).
IchabodIchabod Crane of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, by Washington Irving (1820).
IshmaelThe narrator of Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville (1851).
JabberwockThe monster of the nonsense poem in Through the Looking-Glass, by Lewis Carroll (1871).
LilliputThe island of tiny people in Gulliver's Travels, by Jonathan Swift (1726).
Little JohnRobin Hood's companion in the old English legend, a very large man.
MicawberMr. Micawber of David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens, sure that something will turn up.
PassepartoutFogg's valet in Around the World in Eighty Days, by Jules Verne (1872).
PenelopeThe wife of Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey.
PickwickMr. Pickwick of The Pickwick Papers, by Charles Dickens (1836).
PipThe orphan hero of Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens (1861).
PollyannaThe heroine of Pollyanna, by Eleanor H. Porter (1913), the first of the Glad Books.
PortiaThe heroine of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.
ProsperoThe wizard at the center of Shakespeare's The Tempest.
PuckThe mischievous sprite of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
QueequegThe harpooner of Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville (1851).
QuixoteThe knight of Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes (1605).
RipRip Van Winkle, who falls asleep and wakes 20 years later, in the story by Washington Irving (1819).
RumpelstiltskinThe little man of the fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm (1812).
ScheherazadeThe legendary narrator of One Thousand and One Nights.
SinbadThe sailor of seven voyages in One Thousand and One Nights.
SnarkThe creature hunted in The Hunting of the Snark, by Lewis Carroll (1876).
ThumbelinaThe tiny girl of the fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen (1835).
Tiny TimThe small boy of A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens (1843).
TybaltA character of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, known as the Prince of Cats.
WatsonDr. Watson, the friend of the detective in the stories of Arthur Conan Doyle.
Authors 28
AesopThe Greek teller of fables, credited with the stories known as Aesop's Fables.
AlcottLouisa May Alcott, the American novelist who wrote Little Women (died 1888).
AustenJane Austen, the English novelist (died 1817).
BashoMatsuo Basho, the Japanese poet famous for his haiku (died 1694).
BronteCharlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte, three English novelists who were sisters.
ByronLord Byron, the British Romantic poet (died 1824).
CervantesMiguel de Cervantes, the Spanish writer of Don Quixote (died 1616).
ChaucerGeoffrey Chaucer, the English poet of The Canterbury Tales (died 1400).
ChekhovAnton Chekhov, the Russian playwright and short story writer (died 1904).
DanteDante Alighieri, the Italian poet of the Divine Comedy (died 1321).
DickensCharles Dickens, the English writer (died 1870).
DumasAlexandre Dumas, the French novelist of The Three Musketeers (died 1870).
GrimmJacob and Wilhelm Grimm, the German brothers who collected folk tales.
KafkaFranz Kafka, the novelist and writer from Prague (died 1924).
KiplingRudyard Kipling, the English writer of The Jungle Book (died 1936).
LangstonLangston Hughes, the American poet (died 1967).
MelvilleHerman Melville, the American writer of Moby-Dick (died 1891).
PoeEdgar Allan Poe, the American writer and poet (died 1849).
ThoreauHenry David Thoreau, the American writer of Walden (died 1862).
TolstoyLeo Tolstoy, the Russian writer (died 1910).
TwainMark Twain, the American writer and humorist (died 1910).
VerneJules Verne, the French novelist (died 1905).
VirgilThe Roman poet who wrote the Aeneid.
WhitmanWalt Whitman, the American poet of Leaves of Grass (died 1892).
WildeOscar Wilde, the Irish poet and playwright (died 1900).
WoolfVirginia Woolf, the English writer (died 1941).
WordsworthWilliam Wordsworth, the English Romantic poet (died 1850).
ZoraZora Neale Hurston, the American writer (died 1960).
Words of the trade 34
AlmanacA regularly published listing of facts, such as tide tables and planting dates.
BardA poet and singer among the ancient Celts.
BookmarkLies down in the middle of the book and keeps your place.
BookwormFor a pet who sits on whatever you are reading.
ChapterOne of the main divisions of a book.
CliffhangerAn ending that leaves the hero in trouble until next time.
CodexThe ancestor of the modern book.
CommaA punctuation mark, shaped like a cat curled up asleep.
Dog-EarA folded-down corner of a page.
EditorWalks across the keyboard and improves the sentence.
EpilogueA piece of writing at the end of a work.
FableA short tale, often about animals, that ends in a moral.
FootnoteA note at the bottom of a page.
HaikuA short form of poetry from Japan.
LimerickA humorous verse in five lines.
MetaphorA figure of speech that describes one thing by naming another.
MuseThe Muses are the goddesses who inspire literature and the arts.
NarratorFor a pet who comments on everything you do.
NovellaA story shorter than most novels and longer than most short stories.
OdeA kind of lyric poem.
PaperbackSoft, light and goes everywhere with you.
PapyrusA material like thick paper that was written on in ancient times.
PrologueAn opening to a story.
QuillA pen made from a bird's flight feather.
SagaOne of the prose stories and histories composed in Iceland.
ScribeA person who copied out manuscripts by hand.
ScrollA roll of papyrus, parchment or paper with writing on it.
SequelA book or film that carries on the story of an earlier one.
SerifThe small stroke at the end of a longer stroke in a letter.
SonnetA poem of fourteen lines.
StanzaA group of lines within a poem.
ThesaurusA reference work that arranges words by their meanings.
TomeA large or scholarly book.
TypoA mistake made in typing.
How this list was compiled
Own choice of 135 pet names from old books, made for this page on 2026-10-02; the choice and the wording of every line are ours. Shelves: 27 animals of literature, 46 characters and places, 28 authors, 34 words of the writing trade. Each name is also marked for a dog (101), for a cat (89) or for both, which is our own judgment. The rule: every book, play, poem or story named on a card was first published before 1931, or is an ancient or medieval work, so that all are in the public domain in the United States; every author died before 1970. The facts on 130 cards (the book, its author and its year, or what a word means) were read that day in the English Wikipedia article on that book, character, author or word (the opening section, or the whole article where a character is not named there; CC BY-SA 4.0), in English Wiktionary for tome and dog-ear, and for Dinah in the text of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland at Project Gutenberg; most of the works named were also found by title in Project Gutenberg's catalog the same day. The year on the Ariel card was read on 2026-10-03 in the opening section of the article on The Tempest. Left out on purpose: characters of newer books, of films, shows and games, the names on the leave-out list of the cat and dog name generators (so no detective by his first name and no panther of the jungle), and the best-known bears, fawns and rabbits that film studios and publishers now trade on. The fact lines were read again against the same sources on 2026-10-03. Licence: The choice of names, the groups and the wording of the lines are our own work. Facts on the cards draw on English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/); the books named are in the public domain in the United States.