When you name your fish, how do you decide?

[FINWIN]

With me its either:

Color/body type
attitude/personality
or something the fish reminds me of

Sometimes its a combination of everything. I've had fish I could name right away...others it took time to figure it out. So here's how I came up with my fish names:

My Severum Chip was named because he was thin as a potato chip when I got him.
Cash the syno because I paid the most for him of all the synos...he's the flashiest one.
Spot the syno because he reminded me of a little dark blotch. More plain.
Bobo the Chocolate because he's nerdy, goofy and poofy.
Tango the Blood Parrot because he reminded me of the orange drink TANG.
Kong the Blood Parrot because she has the temperament of King Kong...and reminds me of a KKP on roids.
Patch the Blood Parrot because she had a nice beauty mark on her nose...it was a black circle. Disappeared and never came back. She's my 'glamour' parrot. And a total psychopath, if a fish can be one.
Boss the Blood Parrot started out as a parody. He was the smallest BP that got picked on, so I named him 'Boss.' Kinda like calling someone big "Tiny." (now he's the most massive parrot and pretty much lives up to his name). So he's gone from wimp to lip ripper.
My previous Rainbow cichlid Snaps had a snappy, friendly little personality and a herky jerky swimming motion.
My current Rainbow cichlid Pepper is just that, peppery. Fiesty and fearless. In QT he would ram the partition and squeeze through the other side.
My previous acara Skyy was named because of his color. Big, too ~6+ inches and fat. He may have been old, though...rolled over with no explanation or reason.
My current acara Felix, aka Chill, aka Bolt, has a story. The 'zombie' acara has survived electrocution (exploding heater) and a prat fall on concrete. He arrived on delivery with no water in his bag...the plastic was wrapped around his body. So he was Chill because of his laid back attitude (in contrast to Pepper). Then after being electrocuted, he was named Bolt. After he landed on the floor several feet from the tank with no injuries I named him Felix, as in Felix the cat with 9 lives. He's gone through 3, so he has 6 left. And all that stuff happened in ONE week.
Last and hardly least is Brick...named both for color and shape. A low key copper with black as a baby...and thick as a block with a high back. I'd say maybe 30 -35 percent of his siblings were tall bodied...the rest were more torpedo shaped.

 

[Hendre]

What a list!

I have Muppet the bichir - Jumped out of the tank while I was observing, aka acting like a muppet.
And Lolita the female betta - My ex named her that since she is small and sassy.

 

[Kolton13]

What a list!

I have Muppet the bichir - Jumped out of the tank while I was observing, aka acting like a muppet.
And Lolita the female betta - My ex named her that since she is small and sassy.

Lol! I’ve named my gulper and my crested gecko. The only things I’ve really named.

gulper-shrek, another name for gulper cats is ogre catfish so shrek went well

gecko-nugget, not really a reason thought it was funny?

 

[Hendre]

My crestie is named Roxy, no idea why. Will see what the next one ends up being.

Cresties are nuggets though, so not bad.

 

[dr exum]

usually by country of origin and names they use there.

 

[Itsadeepbluesea]

Its what ever floats my boat at the time I get them.

 

[twentyleagues]

I haven't named many of my fish but my albino sen is Gwisin the Korean word for ghost or phantom mostly be cause she is albino but also she has a habit of showing up out of nowhere. My newest del is Tiny but it's starting to really pack on size. Another dels name is Udon named by magpie because she was a member of her noodles, along with the ropes aka the noodles.

 

[Dalfrey86]

I've had to name all of my fish due to the kiddos.

There is buddy the BP, aka burrowed.
Albert the mixed African cichlid who acts like a gangster.
Weasel the mixed African cichlid who was too weak to defend himself...
Twinkle the peacock cichlid, mainly because of the yellow shine.
And last but not least the underdog Roberta the rainbow cichlid. She is the silent killer. I think she is the one that ate my bottlenose pleco. Investigation is still underway.

 

[esoxlucius]

When I got my red tailed giant gourami at about 3" it was as cute as a button. By looking at the fins I was pretty sure it was female so my wife named her tinkerbell. Further down the road, as she developed, it became increasingly more obvious that she was in fact a HE!

Five years have now passed and that cute as a button little wriggler we named tinkerbell is now a 16" gnarly old chap who's never going to win any beauty contests. I never had the heart to tell my wife and she still calls the old brute tinkerbell to this day.

So nowadays very few of my fish get names.