Who Came First, The Cat Or The Character?
Anyone who knows me even the slightest bit, is fully aware of my affection for cats.
Even the farm was named for the number of cats who moved to this acreage with us: Five Feline Farm.
Writers have a special relationship with cats. Ernest Hemingway had his six-toed cats in Key West. Stephen King, Judy Blume, and Alice Walker are all known to be cat lovers.
As an author, those cats whose name is after a literary figure, especially the ones that incorporate a pun have fascinated me. Edgar Allan Purr, Lady Cat-herine DeBurgh, Charles Kittens, Harry Pawter, Willy Won-cat are wonderful examples.
Then there are felines named after a cat character. Crookshanks and Mrs. Norris from the Harry Potter books, Buttercup of The Hunger Games fame, and Cat Morgan in Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.
Of course, some cats are bestowed with the moniker of a human characters. Queen Guinevere, Ali Baba, and Eliza Doolittle make fantastic cat names. (In my first novel, The Inheritance, the ginger striped cat is named for Eleanor Roosevelt and also responds to “Ellie”.)
So when a delightful Caliby kitten whom the shelter had named Petunia, joined Five Feline Farm in 2021, the name had to follow this literary tradition.
Researching the famous cats in literature, the answer was right in front of our eyes. She would be named after the main character in the Landow Creek series. Ivory.
She’ll also answer to Ivy, Ivory Petunia, and Baby.
The answer to the question: the character came first, but the cat thinks she did.