Kangaroo names really depends upon the mother kangaroo. Mother kangaroos (does or jills) are known to choose names for their joeys based upon:
- traditional family names
- popular movie character names
- favourite fictional characters – typically from movies, but also books
Some of the less common ways jills will choose joey names are:
- Pick up on joey’s cues (leads to a lot of joeys being called Kick and Jump)
- Go to the bookshop and pick a random name from a random book (although kangaroos aren’t generally allowed in bookstores due to their habit of browsing and not buying anything)
- Ask the joey (given kangaroos can’t talk I’m not sure this helps)
- Name associations (for kangaroos who like word games)
- Get your other joeys to decide (hard if this is the jills’ first joey)
- Pull the name out of a hat (although kangaroos don’t wear hats)
- Meaningful moments (which leads to names like Hop Away From Hunter, and Juicy Leaves).
Some rules jills generally abide by in naming:
- no names of former girlfriends or boyfriends
- no names used for pets (not that kangaroos have a lot of pets)
- no names already used by friends or colleagues (they are often in mobs, so best not to double up on names).
Hope this helps.
This post originally appeared on Quora. Yep. Someone used Quora instead of Google for this. They are probably registered to vote too. Just think about that.
Tyson Adams 