What the Westminster show dogs’ names mean

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This article was published 10/02/2025 (575 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

They have names that could make a random password generator cry uncle.

Meet, for example, GCHG CH Calicops Sassafras Gonnakikurass.

“She’s a saucy girl. Her name says it all,” Fred Ortiz said as he groomed the Brussels griffon to compete Monday at the Westminster Kennel Club dog show.

Her name says … what exactly? Well, ponder the final part, and you may understand what her owners are wryly getting at. But in any event, you can just call her Wrassy.

After agility and obedience contests Saturday, Westminster’s main competition began Monday with breed-by-breed judging that leads to U.S. dogdom’s most illustrious best in show prize, awarded Tuesday night.

In semifinals Monday night at Madison Square Garden, judges chose a bichon frise known as Neal; a German shepherd named Mercedes, who was last year’s runner-up; a shih tzu called Comet, who was a finalist last year and won the huge American Kennel Club National Championship in 2023; and a whippet dubbed Bourbon, who’s a two-time runner-up at Westminster.

Comet “enjoys every moment of this,” co-breeder, co-owner and handler Luke Ehricht told the crowd at Madison Square Garden, where the show returned for the first time since early 2020. “He’s such a fun dog, too.”

Three more finalists will be picked Tuesday night.

The full, formal names of those chosen so far? That would make for a dizzying paragraph.

If show dogs are the aristocrats of the canine world, they often have the names, titles and nicknames to match.

Their “registered,” or formal, names are the ones used for showing. Those long, confounding-sounding appellations are actually packed with show-dog information.

Clumps of capital letters at the beginning, and sometimes also the end, signify the dogs’ achievements in various sports. “GCHG” and “CH,” for example, denote various levels of championship in the traditional, breed-by-breed judging.

After those titles, the first word in a registered name generally indicates the kennel, or breeding program, that produced the dog. Other kennels or dogs in the pedigree might get a shout-out at the end.

Meanwhile, show dogs have “call names” that they go by on a day-to-day basis. A dog might also have had a different “puppy name” bestowed by its breeder and later changed by its eventual owner.

The portmanteau words and puzzling phrases in registered names are partly meant to avoid duplication with other dogs in registries that go back over a century.

But many breeders also use patterns to help them remember which litter was which.

Professional dog handlers and sometime miniature schnauzer breeders Rachel Adams and Alberto Montila name their litters in alphabetical order — one litter had names that start with “A,” the next with “B,” and so on, Adams said Monday. She was blow-drying a French bulldog named GCHG CH Elysium’s Adventurous Rapscallion D’Assisi, better known as Finn.

When Amie McLaughlin picks names for her litters of Norwegian buhunds, she just likes to have pun.

“I like the name to be something that someone looks at and says, ‘Oh, that’s cute,’” said McLaughlin, of Kent, Washington.

A dog she bred and guided to a best-of-breed win on Monday, GCH CH Cloudpointe Nothing Betta Than This CGC, was born into a fish-themed litter (hence “Betta,” a type of Southeast Asian fish). He goes by Eirik when he’s at home with co-owner Sarah Woodworth in Paloa, Hawaii.

GCH CH Aberdeen’s Zoltar RN BN-V — just Zoltar, to his friends — has owners who appreciate humor, too. For one thing, they share their Los Angeles-area home with a shaggy, clownish, 120-pound otterhound who likes to cuddle.

Comedian and actor Chris Hardwick, who owns the dog with his wife, model and actor Lydia Hearst, named Zoltar for the fortune-telling machine that makes a teenager grow to adult proportions overnight in the movie “Big.”

“We knew he was going to grow,” and plenty big, explained Hearst.

Zoltar got some recognition Monday from the judge, but the dog’s cousin Melody, a.k.a. GCHS CH Dobhran’s Alexa Play Some Music, won best of breed.

Hardwick and Hearst were also cheering on the French bulldog breed winner, called Sassy, or GCHS Diva’s Sassafras Lass. She and other breed winners were headed into a semifinal round Monday night.

Sassy is owned and was co-bred by Hearst’s mother, newspaper heir Patricia Hearst Shaw. Famous in the 1970s for her abduction and involvement in a robbery by a radical group, she’s been renowned in recent years for her Frenchies and other show dogs.

Colton Johnson and his family name their litters of old English sheepdogs by themes, such as songs, movies, money, or — appropriately — fluffy things.

One of those “fluff” dogs is GCH CH Bugaboo’s Give Me S’more, who lolled on a table while Johnson brushed him Monday, before competing and winning his breed.

The dog’s call name is Graham, as in the crackers that join toasted marshmallow and chocolate to make s’mores. He’s a grandson of Swagger, whom Johnson handled to a second-place finish at Westminster in 2013.

Graham came close to nabbing a finalist nod Monday but lost the “herding group” spot to Mercedes. The 5-year-old, formally named GCHP Kaleef’s Mercedes, is making Westminster her last show before retiring.

As for her name, “I wanted something German and something that represented excellence,” said co-owner Cynthian Wilhelmy of Martinsburg, West Virginia. “Classic, reliable and excellent — that’s Mercedes.”