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125 Genius Tabby Cat Names You’ll Love

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We’ve gathered some excellent tabby cat names that are as unique as your kitten! Check out our complete list of ideas and save your favorites.

Tabby Cat Names

What is a Tabby Cat?

It’s not a specific breed but rather a classification of any domestic cat with distinctive stripes, dots, lines, or swirling patterns. Many have a mark resembling an ‘M’ on their forehead. They come in many different color mixtures, including black, gray, brown, orange, and cream.

These unique patterns can be a great source of ideas for tabby cat names!

There are four distinctive patterns that can each inspire unique name ideas:

  • Mackerel – narrow stripes that run vertically down their back.
  • Spotted – various shaped spots throughout their body.
  • Ticked – a pattern that produces agouti hairs, hairs with distinct bands of color on them, and looks almost like salt and pepper.
  • Classic – circular smudges that look almost like a bullseye.
  • Patched – used to describe a tortoiseshell tabby cat with patches of brown & red.

So, now that you’ve got clarification on what exactly a tabby cat is, let’s get to the fun part: tabby cat names!

An obvious name choice is Tabby, or Tabitha, or Tab. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Here are many more options for your pet.

Tabby Cat Names Based on Patterns

What makes a tabby cat so special is the patterns on their fur, so why not use this as inspiration for their name?

  • Spot – This is a great choice if you have a spotted tabby cat. And we love the irony of giving a cat a classic dog name.
  • Pebbles – Tabby cats often have a pebbled fur pattern. Also, this name is adorable.
  • Patches Patterns of different colors kind of look like patches.
  • Harlequin – A name inspired by the harlequin pattern.
  • Speckles
  • Marble – Tabby coats often have a marble pattern.
  • Dot – A super sweet name for a girl cat with spots.
  • Smudge
  • Glitter
  • Cheetah
  • Checkers – We love this creative spin on the specked pattern of tabby cats.
  • Stripes
  • Mackerel – Named after one of the four distinct tabby patterns. You can also shorten to “Mac.”
  • Agouti Cats with the ticked pattern have what’s called agouti – fur coloration in which each hair displays alternating bands of dark and light pigmentation. When it comes to tabby cat names, this is definitely unique!
  • Freckles – A cute idea for spots
  • Stripes
  • Inky – Great for a darker cat or one with dark spots
  • Tigger – The famous tiger from Winnie the Pooh.
  • Patches
  • Salt ‘n Pepper – for a light and dark patterned cat
  • Speckles
  • Zebra – a funny name for a striped cat
  • Rorschach – also known as the “inkblot test” used by psychologists

Names Inspired by Color

Tabby cats come in all sorts of different colors. Here are some names based on the most popular colors common to these beautiful creatures.

Orange Tabby Cat Names

  • Scarlet
  • Carrot – a funny name for an orange tabby cat.
  • Cinder – Another unique option for a cat that’s a little dark in coloring.
  • Ember – Ember is the color of a glowing hot coal, which could kind of sum up some of the tabby colorings.
  • Marmalade – The orange fruit spread.
  • Lion
  • Ruby
  • Rusty
  • Amber – A beautiful, girly name based on the goldish orange coloring.
  • Red
  • Ginger
  • Goldy – Perfect for that golden-hued furball.
  • Hobbes – The tiger from Calvin and Hobbes.
  • Copper – If your cat has a warm, rusty coloring, this is perfect.
  • Honey

Here are some more ginger cat names.

Grey Tabby Cat Names

  • Ash
  • Shadow – For the cats that are darker in color.
  • Silverbell
  • Pepper A great option if your cat is gray and black with a ticked partner.
  • Mouse
  • Onyx – If your cat has a bold, saturated coat color, this could be a cool name.
  • Storm
  • Earl Grey – A fun, cultured name for cats with a gray coat.
  • Pebble
  • Stoney – We love this sweet name for a grayish-colored cat.

Find more gray cat names.

Brown Tabby Cat Names

  • Mocha
  • Moose
  • Brownie
  • Teddy
  • Cocoa – A cute, sweet name for a brown-ish cat.
  • Tawny – A light brown-ish orange color, tawny also makes a super cute cat name.
  • Hazel
  • Snickers
  • Cinnamon – Great for cats with a reddish hue.
  • Chewie
  • Fawn – This light yellow/tan color is quite popular in felines and provides great inspiration for tabby cat names.

You can find even more brown cat names here.

Other Colors

  • Sable
  • Emery
  • Blue – Sometimes cats have almost a blue-ish hue.
  • Feather
  • Oreo
  • Tux
  • Blizzard

If you like names inspired by color, check out previous articles we’ve written on black cat names and black and white cat names.

two grey tabby cats

Fun Tabby Cat Names

Tabby cats are such unique, playful creatures, so why not have a little bit of fun with their name?

  • Abby – A super sweet female cat name in itself, Abby also rhymes fabulously with tabby. Abby the Tabby!
  • Gabby – Or, there’s also Gabby.
  • Flabby – If your cat is a little on the heavier side, Flabby is a silly, funny name.
  • Crabby – And if your cat has an attitude problem, why not call it like it is? Crabby the Tabby.
  • Tabigail – We totally just made this up. For female tabby cat names, this might just be perfect.
  • Tiger – Because the tabby pattern kind of looks like a tiger coat.
  • Reese – Inspired by Reeses Pieces, those brown, orange and yellow candies.
  • Taffeta – Tabby comes from a translation of the French word for “striped silk taffeta.” How fancy is that?
  • Em – Many tabby cats have an “M” shaped mark on their forward, so you could call your cat Em, Emma or Emmy.
  • Tabico – Some cats have a combination of tabby and calico markings, affectionately called tabico.
  • Attabiy – Tabby cats were named after a striped silk made in Baghdad, specifically the Attabiy district.
  • Leopard – (or Leo for short) The coats of some tabby cats kind of looks like a leopard.
  • Bullseye – As we mentioned before, some tabby cats have a bullseye shape on their fur. How adorbs is this name?

Famous Tabby Cats – Purrrr-fect Inspiration for Tabby Cat Names

And finally, you could draw inspiration from famous tabby cats.

  • Garfield – The famous orange cartoon cat is considered a tabby. At least according to Wikipedia.
  • Morris – The advertising mascot for 9Lives brand cat food.
  • Ithaca Kitty – This popular stuffed toy from the past was modeled after a tabby cat.
  • Think Think – The President of Taiwan owns a tabby cat named Think Think.
  • Freya – The name of the tabby cat belonging to former British Chancellor George Osborne.
  • Heathcliff – An orange cat with stripes from the comics.
  • Bill the Cat – Another orange comic strip cat who is a parody of Garfield from Bloom County.
  • Azrael – The cat from The Smurfs who is a red mackerel in the movie.
  • Thomasina – a Disney movie about an orange mackerel who lives three lives
  • Milo – from the 1989 film The Adventures of Milo and Otis
  • Cheshire Cat – The grinning cat from Alice in Wonderland.

More Male Tabby Cat Names

If you have a boy tabby, here are some ideas that might make a perfect name.

  • Ali
  • Amos
  • Archie
  • Artie
  • Barney
  • Beaker
  • Bowie
  • Buttons
  • Casper
  • Cookie
  • Cosmo
  • Digby
  • Edison
  • Ernie
  • Finn
  • Izzy
  • Jonesy
  • Meeko
  • Miles
  • Noodles
  • Otis
  • Rooney
  • Scout
  • Spud
  • Wally
  • Yogi

More Female Tabby Cat Names

Here are some additional ideas that can make a cute name for a female tabby.

  • Addie
  • Aja
  • Anya
  • Ava
  • Bailey
  • Bean
  • Belle
  • Boo
  • Cardi
  • Daisy
  • Dora
  • Elsa
  • Gigi
  • Iris
  • Jazzy
  • Jinx
  • Kit
  • Luna
  • Millie
  • Moon
  • Opal
  • Panda
  • Petra
  • Rey
  • Roxy
  • Sadie
  • Shasta
  • Star
  • Tizzy
  • Winnie
  • Yuki
  • Zoe

There you have it, 125 tabby cat names!

If you’re looking for other ideas, don’t fret – we have hundreds of other options. Try out our cat name search to pick one that fits your preferred style and interests.

Good luck, and congratulations on welcoming a new furbaby into your home.

How to Teach Your Cat Its Name

13 Comments

  1. Valerie

    I have one tabby cat named T-rex, And one cat named hummingbird.

  2. TheWorstCat lel

    I named my tabby Goose after the one from Captain Marvel, but these are these are really good names!!

  3. just nobody lol

    Marina for grayish-blue cats

  4. Checkers

    I have a friendly Milo, a friendly Pee Wee, and a tough female cat named Sassy

  5. Derek Bennett

    My cat of 11 years passed away in mid-January of 2020. His name was Nutmeg, and his twin is named Spice.

  6. Clíodhna

    I named my cats before I went on this website to see if my names were uncommon. My older cat is called coco and that was there. I am not surprised. But my ginger kitten was on the ginger names for cats, mango, I love naming my cats after food.

  7. Sarah

    Idk what to name my cat. She is brown and has green eyes. We have had her for half a year now. Please help me•-•

  8. Kayleigh Strickland

    I had my cat for over 6 years she is now 12 years old. I named my black tabby cat Meggie. She is so pretty to.

  9. Makeda Williams

    Sarah I think a cute name would be Emerald!

  10. Kaleigh~H

    I have a brown and black tabby cat and named her angle but these are really cute names!!

  11. Shannon

    I have 2 cats and their names aren’t up there, the boy is Boogies or Boogie BooBoo and the girl name is Nanas and I had a 16 year old named Raider but my baby passed away last July😭. His name isn’t up there either.

  12. Ava

    My cats name is Pepsii

  13. Lisa

    I’ve chosen the name Chloe for my tabby kitten 🐾 she’s 8 weeks old

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