Medical Pet Names

Press for one of these medical inspired pet names, each with a true line on what the word means.

Medical Pet Names

  1. ParacelsusA Swiss physician of the Renaissance.
All 116

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How it works

Medical pet names for the pets of nurses, doctors, vets and students: bones and anatomy, the ward and the lab, healers of history, Latin words, reflexes and small noises. Each card explains the word or names the person.

Read the full guide

Choose the kind of word

After a press, the list under the button picks the kind. Bones and anatomy gives Tibia, Patella, which is the kneecap, and Stapes, the smallest and lightest bone in the human body. Healers of history gives Hippocrates, Nightingale and Pasteur. The last entry of the list, More filters, opens For a dog and For a cat.

What is left out

No medicine and no illness is on the list, and nothing on a card is health advice. The noises are the harmless kind: Hiccup, Achoo, Yawn and Borborygmus, the medical word for a rumbling stomach.

Questions and answers

What are good medical names for a dog?

Femur, the thigh bone, Tibia, Biceps and Atlas, the bone that holds up the head, suit a big dog. Nasus is Latin for nose and Cauda is Latin for tail. Lab is short for laboratory and for a Labrador.

What are medical names for a cat?

Patella, Iris, Stapes, Lunula, the pale half-moon at the base of a fingernail, and Felis, Latin for cat. Pandiculation is the medical word for stretching and yawning together, as on waking.

Who are the healers on the list?

Physicians, nurses and scientists of history, such as Hippocrates, Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing, Elizabeth Blackwell and Louis Pasteur. Four come from Greek and Roman myth: Asclepius, Hygieia, Panacea and Salus.

What does Stat mean as a name?

Stat is hospital shorthand for at once, from the Latin word statim, immediately. As a name it fits a pet who wants dinner now.

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All 116 names

Bones and anatomy 36

  • Achilles The Achilles tendon is the cord at the back of the heel.
  • Aorta The main and largest artery in the body.
  • Atlas The top bone of the spine, the one that holds up the head.
  • Axon The long fiber of a nerve cell that carries its signals onward.
  • Biceps The large muscle at the front of the upper arm.
  • Clavicle Your collarbone.
  • Coccyx The tailbone.
  • Cochlea The part of the inner ear that does the hearing.
  • Cuspid Another name for a canine tooth, also called a dogtooth.
  • Femur The thigh bone.
  • Fibula The calf bone.
  • Funny Bone Not a bone at all: the tingle comes from the ulnar nerve at the elbow.
  • Humerus The long bone of the arm, from the shoulder to the elbow.
  • Hyoid A horseshoe-shaped bone in the neck.
  • Incisor One of the front teeth.
  • Incus A tiny bone of the middle ear; the name is Latin for anvil.
  • Iris The colored ring of the eye that sets the size of the pupil.
  • Lunula The pale half-moon at the base of a fingernail.
  • Malleus A hammer-shaped bone of the middle ear.
  • Mandible The lower jaw.
  • Molar One of the large, flat teeth at the back of the mouth.
  • Neuron One nerve cell.
  • Patella The kneecap.
  • Philtrum The groove in the middle of the upper lip. Dogs have one too.
  • Pisiform A small bone of the wrist, shaped like a pea.
  • Radius One of the two large bones of the forearm.
  • Retina The light-sensitive lining at the back of the eyeball.
  • Sartorius The longest muscle in the human body.
  • Scapula Your shoulder blade.
  • Stapes A bone of the middle ear, the smallest and lightest in the human body.
  • Sternum Your breastbone.
  • Synapse The junction where one nerve cell passes a signal to the next.
  • Talus The ankle bone.
  • Tibia The shinbone, the larger of the two bones below the knee.
  • Ulna A long bone in the forearm.
  • Uvula The small flap that hangs at the back of the roof of the mouth.

The ward and the lab 24

  • Beaker A lab container shaped like a cylinder with a flat bottom.
  • Bedside For a pet with a good bedside manner: stays close and says little.
  • Checkup For a pet who comes to look you over every morning.
  • Forceps A hinged hand tool for grasping and holding.
  • Gauze A thin fabric with an open weave that you can almost see through.
  • Lab Short for laboratory, and for a Labrador.
  • Locum Someone who fills in for another for a while, often a doctor.
  • Matron An old title for the chief nurse of a hospital.
  • Medic A person trained to give medical care.
  • On Call Awake the second anyone opens the fridge.
  • Pager Goes off at three in the morning and cannot be ignored.
  • Pipette A lab tool that moves a measured amount of liquid.
  • Placebo A treatment made to have no effect of its own.
  • Pulse A beat felt in an artery, once for every heartbeat.
  • Reflex An action the body makes by itself, almost at once, in answer to a stimulus.
  • Rounds The walk a doctor makes past every bed, and this pet makes past every bowl.
  • Scrubs The short-sleeved work clothes that surgeons and nurses wear.
  • Splint A device that holds an injured limb still.
  • Stat Hospital shorthand for at once, from the Latin statim.
  • Suture A stitch that holds body tissue together after an injury or surgery.
  • Swab A wad of cotton wrapped around the end of a short rod.
  • Triage Sorting patients to decide who is seen first.
  • Vitals Short for vital signs, the basic measurements of how the body is doing.
  • X-Ray A form of high-energy radiation that passes through soft tissue.

Healers of history 23

  • Asclepius The god of medicine in ancient Greek religion and mythology.
  • Avicenna A Persian scholar and physician of the Islamic Golden Age.
  • Barton Clara Barton, the American nurse who founded the American Red Cross.
  • Blackwell Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to earn a medical degree in the United States.
  • Drew Charles R. Drew, the American surgeon and researcher.
  • Fleming Alexander Fleming, the Scottish physician and microbiologist.
  • Galen A Greek physician and surgeon of the Roman Empire.
  • Harvey William Harvey, the English physician who described the circulation of the blood.
  • Hippocrates The Greek physician often called the father of medicine.
  • Hygieia The Greek goddess of health and cleanliness.
  • Jenner Edward Jenner, the English physician who pioneered the idea of vaccines.
  • Koch Robert Koch, the German physician and microbiologist.
  • Laennec Rene Laennec, the French physician who invented the stethoscope.
  • Nightingale Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing.
  • Osler William Osler, a Canadian physician and a founder of Johns Hopkins Hospital.
  • Panacea The Greek goddess of the remedy for everything.
  • Paracelsus A Swiss physician of the Renaissance.
  • Pasteur Louis Pasteur, the French chemist known for vaccination and pasteurization.
  • Roentgen Wilhelm Roentgen, the German physicist who discovered X-rays.
  • Salus The Roman goddess of safety and well-being.
  • Seacole Mary Seacole, the Jamaican nurse known for her nursing work during the Crimean War.
  • Semmelweis Ignaz Semmelweis, an early champion of washing hands in hospitals.
  • Vesalius Andreas Vesalius, the anatomist who wrote On the Fabric of the Human Body.

Latin on a chart 20

  • Auris Latin for ear.
  • Barba Latin for beard.
  • Bene Latin for well.
  • Cauda Latin for tail.
  • Cor Latin for heart.
  • Cura Latin for care.
  • Dens Latin for tooth.
  • Felis Latin for cat.
  • Lingua Latin for tongue.
  • Medicus Latin for a physician.
  • Nasus Latin for nose.
  • Pes Latin for foot.
  • Pilus Latin for a hair.
  • Pulmo Latin for lung.
  • Rx The sign on a prescription, from the Latin recipe, meaning take.
  • Sana The feminine of the Latin sanus, sound and healthy.
  • Sanitas Latin for health.
  • Somnus Latin for sleep.
  • Venter Latin for belly.
  • Vita Latin for life.

Reflexes and small noises 13

  • Achoo The sound of a sneeze.
  • Blink The quick closing of an eyelid.
  • Borborygmus The medical word for a rumbling stomach.
  • Burp Gas let out through the mouth.
  • Hiccup A sudden jump of the diaphragm that you cannot stop.
  • Horripilation The medical word for goose bumps.
  • Pandiculation The medical word for stretching and yawning together, as on waking.
  • Singultus The medical word for hiccups.
  • Sneeze Air leaving the nose and mouth in one sudden burst.
  • Sniffles The sound of a nose at work, for a pet who follows every scent.
  • Snore The sound of breathing during sleep, for a pet who shakes the windows.
  • Sternutation The medical word for sneezing.
  • Yawn A reflex: a long breath in with the mouth wide open.
How this list was compiled

Own choice of 116 pet names from medicine, made for this page on 2026-10-02; the choice and the wording of every line are ours. Kinds: 36 bones and anatomy, 24 words of the ward and the lab, 23 healers of history and of myth, 20 Latin words, 13 reflexes and small noises of the body. Each name is also marked for a dog (92), for a cat (89) or for both, which is our own judgment. 109 cards state a fact; each was read that day in the opening section of the English Wikipedia article on that word or person, or in the English Wiktionary entry for a Latin word, stat, achoo and pandiculation (CC BY-SA 4.0), and the card says no more than that text does. The few other lines are jokes of ours. A healer is listed only if he or she died before 1970, with the year checked in the article, or belongs to Greek or Roman myth; no living person is on the list. Left out on purpose: every name of a medicine, trade names, illnesses, and anything that reads as health advice. The reflexes and noises are the harmless everyday kind. 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 and English Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).