Before I dive into the lists, I have to ramble on for a minute cause the article is interesting to me in another way, too. The article’s source is a pet insurance company. Back in the day when I was working at Insurance.com, this was exactly the type of article that I’d be asking our team to write so that I could pitch it to AOL to help raise awareness for Insurance.com. If we were lucky, we’d get a few inbound links for SEO benefit from it and even if we were luckier, a boost in traffic to Insurance.com. It looks like this article was actually written by an MSNBC staffer, and they chose not to link out to the pet insurance company. Too bad for the insurance company, but at least they got the awareness piece out of it if not the SEO benefit. To get traffic out of it, they’ll have to rely on a motivated consumer – one who’s willing to seek them out. 

Well color me motivated, cause I’ve always been kind of curious about pet insurance. Seeing Veterinary Pet Insurance as the source makes me want to find out more about their product. You know, as research for my future as a dog owner. I’ll be following up on that topic in the next post, so stay tuned.

OK. Sorry for the detour, let’s get back to the list. Veterinary Pet Insurance apparently has over 460,000 insured pets. That’s a pretty crazy number of doggies running around with their own prescription benefits card! As if we needed more evidence that the US pet owning population is increasingly treating and thinking of their pets as a part of the family, almost (if not actually) human. To further support that, take note of the fact that the trend in dog names is to give them human names now, too. I can’t say that I’m too surprised, nor will I be much different, as I must now confess (Confession #3) that I am currently keeping a running list of potential dog/baby names in my iPhone…to be used for whichever comes first, baby or puppy. Even more embarrassing is that I have Chloe and Sophie on my own list! Chloe and Sophie are number 9 and 10 respectively on the top dog names of 2008, and number 8 and 9 on the list of top baby names of 2008. 

Here’s the official list of top dog names for 2008, courtesy of MSNBC.com:

1. Max
2. Bailey
3. Bella
4. Molly
5. Lucy
6. Buddy
7. Maggie
8. Daisy
9. Sophie
10. Chloe

And the most unusual dog names of 2008…get ready to chuckle. And as you’re reading, keep in mind that these are names that people REGISTERED when filling out an application for pet insurance. Someone somewhere in some pet insurance call center had to type these names into a computer with a straight face. Hmm… maybe I should go work for them!

1. Rush Limbark
2. Sirius Lee Handsome
3. Rafikikadiki
4. Low Jack
5. Meatwad
6. Peanut Wigglebutt 
7. Scuddles Unterfuss
8. Sophie Touch & Pee
9. Admiral Toot
10. Spatula

What is the funniest name you’ve ever heard for a pet? Leave your best (or worst) in the comments below. We could all use a good  laugh right about now. WOOF!