Kicker: A dog by any other name

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: We know Americans love their pets and give them all sorts of interesting names. One site’s been tracking the most popular names for years and just released their top-10 list for 2023.

WORLD Radio intern Emma Perley stopped by her neighborhood pet store in Leesburg, Virginia:

EMMA PERLEY: What’s your pet’s name?

CUSTOMERS: Her name’s Gracie, because she’s God’s gift to me./I have an orange tabby that’s a male that I ended naming Ruby, because I didn’t realize he was a boy when I got him./Mr. Brown. Polly. Hank the Tank. Laverne. Max and Chloe.

Max and Chloe are both popular names for dogs. For the last 10 years, Max topped the charts for boy dogs. But this year, the name Charlie took the top spot, and Luna is most popular for girl dogs.

And sometimes it hard to keep all the names in mind, like this woman says:

CUSTOMER: Lily is the dog. Arri is the cat. Mixie, Leo, and, I have another one. One, two, three. Ummm, I can’t remember the other one. Maybe I have only three.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

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