Do dogs’ names have to start with a set letter each year?

IT IS true that if you have a pedigree dog and wish to register it as such with the Société Centrale Canine in its Livre des Origines Français (LOF), you are required to give it an official name beginning with a letter which changes each year. It depends on the year of the dog’s birth this year’s is M.

The Société Centrale Canine has responsibility for keeping track of the genealogy of pedigree dogs and the rule was brought in to simplify listings, because sometimes owners would fail to register their dog at birth and the registers would become incoherent, with older dogs appearing after younger ones.

This started with A in 1926 and moved through the alphabet although K, Q, W, X and Y are left out due to the scarcity of names.

Names chosen by pedigree dog owners in 2016 ranged from Mimi and Mathilda to M&Ms, Ma P’tite Merveille, Mac Gyver, Macaroon, Moose, Milky Way, My Name is Bond, My Lovely Pet and My Tailor is Rich...

The society advises against giving several puppies the same name, but says if you insist you may use numerals such as Mimi I, Mimi II etc.

According to dresser-son-chien.com it is best to avoid a name that sounds too similar to a common order like ‘assis’ or ‘couché’.

It adds that should the breeder already have listed the dog with a name that you do not like, you may add a nom d’usage (every-day name) to the listing on the LOF, such as ‘Macaroon dit [known as] Tommy’.