Royal Names for Royal Animals

The first cat I had that was really my own cat, as opposed to the "family" cat was a gray Persian mix with a white muzzle and white mittens that I got when I was 13. I've had a sense of the royal bearing of cats for as long as I can remember, so I felt he deserved a royal name.

The lady I got him from had similar ideas. My cat's mother was named Cleopatra. She was a large white Persian with flecks of black in her fur, she looked like she was covered in royal ermine. The lady also owned another Persian, named Julius Caesar. Julius wasn't around when Cleo was in heat, though, he'd gone walkabout for a week or two. Another cat showed up, though, a springy white shorthair that she gave the appropriate moniker of "Marc Anthony." He was my cat's father.

I considered naming my kitten Ptolemy, but he was such an energetic and domineering little kitten among the others of his litter that I decided he should be called "Alexander the Great."

Since then I've had cats with names like Phillip of Macedon, Menelaus of Sparta (pronounced men-uh-lay-us), and, a bit off the track, Yuri Gagarin.