Saturday, February 25, 2023

Samosa


When we got the cats, we discussed whether to give them English names, given we are an English-speaking family, Scottish names, given we are a Scottish family, or Danish names given the cats are technically Danish and will likely spend their entire lives here. The advantage of Danish names would be simpler vet visits and catsitter stays. First of all we googled the top 15 cat names per gender in Denmark and got these: 

Søde kattenavne til hankatte                        Gode kattenavne til hunkatte

  1. Charlie                                                            1. Nala
  2. Winston                                                           2. Fie
  3. Simba                                                              3. Luna
  4. Abyssi                                                              4. Lunka
  5. Sham                                                               5. Fia
  6. Lio                                                                   6. Fortuna
  7. Ra                                                                    7. Desdemona
  8. Calle                                                                8. Maui
  9. Balder                                                              9. Wiwi
  10. Balou                                                             10. Lani 
  11. Bandit                                                            11. Nayla
  12. Evian                                                              12. Mis
  13. Eddie                                                              13. Nanna
  14. Ditlev                                                             14. Åse
  15. Djengis                                                           15. Sussi
The kids rolled their eyes and vetoed the Danish lists. So they started suggesting names from back home. Thomas ruled half of them out as unpronounceable. Eventually they compromised on food items that were (at least potentially) known in both places. So we ended up with Nacho Cheese. 


Nine months later when we got Samosa, we decided to go through other snacks/foods. The girls had Salsa, Chilli, Dorito, Mango etc on the list but couldn't agree. Léon happened to wander in at that moment and point out that Samosas, like Nachos were an orange, triangular snack food and, given she was also partly ginger, it stuck.

I half expected it would get shortened to Sam or Sammy within weeks, but you never know with these things and within days she was being shortened to Mosmos. Amusingly, that in turn gets shortened to Mos, which she seems to like best. And that in itself takes us back to an interesting compromise: Mos is Danish for Mash, as in mashed potatoes, so maybe she ended up with a Danish food name after all!

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