Telepathy with a Cat! (lol)

[Catherine]

English is one of the worst languages to learn. The same word is pronounced differently in different parts of the same country.
So learning how to pronounce letters doesn't really help. 

I have never done Spanish, but I did do Latin and it is  like Spanish. Words are pronounced the way they are spelled.  Of course the way we pronounce Latin now is not how it was pronounced when it was an active language. English speaking people have worked their "magic" and made it a different sounding language. English can even mess up a "dead" language.

That is a good way to guess a dog's name. Has it ever worked or even come close to giving you the dog's name.

[Tobi]

We did that with Toby, the Jack Russell who found us in 1986! While Toby was busy, or just sitting around (and not staring at him at the same time) we said boys' names starting with "A" saying names slowly and randomly. He reacted a bit to the name "Bogie", but then didn't react again until we got to "T" and TOBY. So he chose his own name. But it's likely that was his name. He was about 10 months old when he came to us as a stray.
(By the way, no owner turned up for him and we tried all ways to locate his people for months before finally giving up.)

[Libby]

My first 2 dogs already had names. Streak was a red brown basset hound with a streak of white around her neck and white belly and paws. she was 4 or 5 when I came along. She lived to be 15 nearly 16.

Bailey was 2 when we got her so she was already AKC registered with a name. She was a tricolor basset hound. We got her from my stepdads cousin who couldn't keep her in the invisible fence. She ended up in the middle of a 4 lane highway and they decided to find her a home. She lived to be 10 so that would have been mid 1998 when we got her.

Then Buddy came along in 2002 (as I was writing this I realized Buddy was actually 16 not 15 when he passed). My little black Basset lab mix. My mom just named him Buddy. I threw a few names like Shadow or Eagle eye cause he had beautiful golden eyes but the first couple of months we were more focused on finding his owners. My mom tried to give him away but I fought like crazy to keep him. He was super hyper and crazy and chewed everything so my mom was pulling her hair out.

Molly we straight up took. We kinda knew who her owners might be but they weren't taking care of her. So we took 6 months to catch her and never looked back. Before getting her my mom just called her baby girl. But once we got her home we knew she needed something more. We had a list of names but we knew she had no names other than baby girl. I had a doll I had named Molly as a kid. No clue where I got the name but Molly became her name.

Mia respond to everything because all she wanted was loving attention. We tried finding her owner at first but it became clear she wasn't being cared for so we switched to trying to find her a home and then after 6 months and all the homes lined up fell though we just kept her. I wanted to name her Bug cause she looks like a bug but my mom hated it and so I suggested Mia after the main character in The Princess Diaries.

Fennec we had a list ready because it was more of a free adoption but once I said he looks like a fennec fox then that was his name.

Silver Bullet came to us as Little Man but that was one of the nicknames for Buddy so I needed to change his name. Bullet is already a mini Buddy I just couldn't keep his name as something I called Buddy. When I say Bullet is like Buddy I mean it. He chews up the same thing Buddy did and he has some of the same mannerisms. So it is so surreal sometimes because it's like having Buddy again sometimes. For better or worse. Not too happy when he chews my socks and panties or shirts the same way Buddy did.

Now other dogs I've found their homes or re-homed I did the A-Z test. The ones I kept it didn't come up. Funny how that happens.

[Catherine]

Interesting that you were able to sort out Toby's name like that.
I knew people who took in an adult dog and they wondered what his name was. One of them said "I wonder what they called you when you were tiny". As soon as the dog heard the name Tiny he reacted and he responded to it for the rest of his life.

Libby it is funny how all you dogs came to you and got their names. You are a real dog magnet. 
I can see how the A-Z method would work. The dog must know his name.  If you could guess right the dog would respond. Most people call their pets ordinary names so guessing is possible.

Bullet sounds like a character. You know you love having a dog like that. He is the bad little boy that you just can't be mad at.