Namely

For those planning to add a dog to the family chow line this holiday season, here are the latest tallies of popular dog names for our town.

Baltimore's favorite dog names for 2018: Bella for females, Max for males. "Rover" is the name of a company, not a dog, and it's a consortium of pet sitters and dog walkers nationwide, and they say that 36% of dogs nowadays have names that are "decidedly human."

And that's good, because not 100% of humans have names that are decidedly human.  Just ask Apple, the child of Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin...Birdie and Cricket, children of Busy Philipps and Marc Silverstein...or "Bronx," child of Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz.

Bronx should hang around with Todd Heap's daughter Brooklyn; they could ride the Staten Island Ferry and sip Manhattans.

Back to the names...the people at Rover say, "In the process, we uncover the big cultural moments that are inspiring us."

Some of these big cultural moments include using retro names like  Minnie, Pearl, Willie, Irene, Edna and Myrtle  - names associated with granny and grandpa. Such names were up 17 percent this year.

Naming a pooch "Poe" rose 25% this year in Baltimore, and names from "The Wire" such as Snoop, Bubbles, Cutty and Bunk were up even more.

You'll have to forgive me if I don't know whom your canine is named for if their name comes from the Marvel comics field, or "Guardians of the Galaxy." 

A certain percentage of people feel
their dog should wear a toupee.
Probably it's the same percentage of
people who feel that men should as well.

The name "Drax" is up 186% all across America. I feel like I should know who Drax is.  I don't. I'm sure someone will put me wise.

Anyhow, here are the top dogs, name-wise, in Bmore:

Female

Bella
Lucy
Daisy
Luna
Maggie

Male

Max
Charlie
Tucker
Cooper
Buddy

Baltimore doesn't veer off from the pack, so to speak: Bella and Max are the top names for dogs in the US.

5% of doggie dogs get named for some sort of food (Waffles, Applesauce, Muffin) and 17% carry names of alcoholic beverages (Porter, Whiskey, Bud Light.)

Over 94% of pet owners consider their pet to be a member of the family.

What's with the other 6%? They regard their pets as strangers?