If you encounter the name Robert or Janet, it's probably a human. The name Bear or Lady probably belongs to a dog. But the name Bella or Max could be a human or a dog. I know dogs named George and Phil, and it makes me laugh for some reason. Giving dogs (and cats) human names has become somewhat of a trend. But what makes the difference between a human name and a dog name?
The Washington Post crunched the data of names listed with Social Security and the names of 61,000 dogs listed for adoption on Petfinder to chart which names are more "human" and which are more "dog." I'm sure you'll find a familiar name charted that belongs to both humans and dog- for example, George is the most human name found, while I have a friend whose dog is George. Meanwhile, I went by Sadie for a long time, which is definitely a dog's name; I've been told a number of times. One caveat for the dog names is that shelter workers have to name a lot of dogs in a hurry, and those names are often changed after adoption.
Curiously, names that are associated with the 19th and 21st centuries are popular for dogs today, while 20th century names are more likely to be reserved for humans. Read about the segregation and overlap between human names and dog names at the Washington Post, or if you're not a subscriber, find it here. -via Metafilter
(Image credit: matt.herzog)