Comet and I have a cat whom I initially named Serenity (after Firefly), but the name didn't stick. She has a habit of sitting and leaning against a wall, looking like a wino, and Comet would say to her, in baby talk, "Are you dunkeesh?" That quickly became her name. We also have a dog named Doña, so named by a previous owner. Comet is Mexican and the lady of the house, so when somebody calls "Doña" she instinctively reacts. One evening we were watching Les Misérables (the recent version with Hugh Jackman), and the scene of Cosette at the Thénardiers' place reminded Comet of the deplorable living conditions from which we rescued Doña, so she suggesting renaming her Cosette. That also didn't stick because we're all so used to calling her Doña. Besides, renaming her Cosette would be insulting to Comet's daughter and son-in-law, who by implication would be the Thénardiers.
Apparently I had seen either Walt Disney's Peter Pan or the early Mary Martin live broadcasts of 1955 or 1956 when I was a small child, because I remember having a dog I called Peter when I was 4 or 5.
Our family had a tradition of giving our cats names starting with "S." My favorite and longest-lived cat was a sleek black shorthair named Sammy. We used to joke that he was named for Sammy Davis Jr. because he was black and Jewish. (Although the cat had two good eyes.) My brother and his family continued the tradition with their cat Samson, but when they got him a female companion, she just had to be named Delilah. Currently, my downstairs neighbors have two female cats named Coco and Chanel.
My first cat was named Sonya after the girl cat from Heathcliff. Imagine my surprise when my lovely cat turned out to be a boy...
That reminds me that 15 years ago I took in a stray cat that I thought was female but my neighbour Dave insisted was male. He scoffed at me saying that he knew how to tell the sex of a cat. He was very convincing so I called the cat Bamm Bamm (after Betty and Barney Rubble's son). About 6 weeks later Bamm Bamm gave birth to to three kittens including my beloved Miss Chicken and the before mentioned Onslow. Despite being a girl cat we kept the name Bamm Bamm.
^*cracks up* That sounds like what happened with hamsters my brother and I had. We had those little Russian/Asian/whatever they're called now dwarf hamsters and we got two and kept them in the same cage. I was sure mine was a girl, but my brother insisted that Friskie was a boy. Oh how wrong he was... when Friskie had babies. My eight-year-old ego got quite a boost.
Had two cats named after Sherlock Holmes characters, Mycroft and Mrs. Hudson. Mrs. Hudson we lost before I graduated college and moved to Germany and Mycroft we had up until Sep 2011 when he got cancer. Had them both as kittens together and Mycroft was 14 1/2 yrs old when he passed. One of the best cats I've ever had.
When I was a kid, we had 2 cats. One was named Claude and the other Sylvester. Both were named after cats in the Warner Brothers cartoons.
Our dog is named Rockford after the Rockford Files and we once had a cat who was named Snug after Snug Joiner in Midsummer night's dream.
When I was 12 I named my puppy "Muffy" after the robot daggitt on the original BSG. My poor grandfather...he'd never call the dog by name in a public place! In fact , by the time I hit my late teens I was regretting giving him that name myself! I'm sorry old friend!
The cat I have now is Cleo, but I didn't name her. I'd been checking the local Humane Society website for several weeks after a dog had died, and had noticed her a few times, already with that name. When I saw she had eventually been there a month, I figured I'd better get her then. I kept the name since she might have been used to it (she was 5 yrs old then, about 9 now). It looks like there are several Cleo fictional characters I could retcon the name to.
We had a 100-percent perfect track record of telling the sex of a new kitten -- of getting it wrong, that is. Every cat we thought was male turned out to be female and vice versa. That's how Samantha became Sammy and Sheldon became Shelley. It would have been easier if we'd given all our cats names like Adrian, Dana, Jamie, Leslie and Meredith.
We have a cat that turned out to be hermaphrodite (as confirmed by the vet). We didn't suspect anything until "he" got pregnant. We tried using gender nonspecific pronouns for awhile, but after the second litter of kittens we gave up. She had to be spayed and neutered!
My cars have been named Gryphon G'Kar - he was green Gromit - he was mostly white Galahad - he's a Highlander Gilgamesh - he's royal blue