
Only 37 dogs of each breed can have the same name - slyall
https://twitter.com/leftoblique/status/1139737041162272768
======
systemtrigger
This part:

    
    
      They're:
      Spot                 I
      Spot                II
      ...
    

is not quite correct. The AKC does not assign a number to the first one.

Open the Dog Name Check [1]. Pick a breed, enter a unique dog name, and the
page will report it is available. Now pick a semi-unique combination ("Shih
Tzu" \+ "King") and the page will say "The name chosen has been used
previously, but may be used with the following change: King XXXVII." This
implies the first person to pick "King" got "King" and the second person got
"King II."

One dog per breed can have the name Spot/King/etc. But the AKC is a rent-
seeking monopoly and 6 Roman numerals is short enough to still appear somewhat
exclusive.

[1]
[https://www.apps.akc.org/apps/reg/namecheck/index.cfm](https://www.apps.akc.org/apps/reg/namecheck/index.cfm)

~~~
hirsin
So it's an off by one error in the post?

~~~
Svip
I think it's more like how it's Pope Francis and not Pope Francis I, since
he's the first Pope Francis, you don't add the number. We will only do that
after the fact, i.e. when another pope chooses the name Francis.

So grandparent's point isn't that it's off by one, but that the first name is
inaccurate for the time it was rewarded. Although, considering we are viewing
it _after the fact_, i.e. now that more dogs are called the same, I think it's
fair to add the "I" at the end.

------
bscphil
Kind of a weird, deceiving title choice. There's no rule or law anywhere
requiring this ... you can name your dog whatever you want. Apparently there
is an organization called the AKC (never heard of it) which allows you to
register your dog. Their record-keeping system can only hold 37 dogs of each
name / breed combination because of old technological requirement.

So if you have a dog you want to register with this specific organization for
whatever reason, there might be limitations on what you can name it. That's
much less interesting to me than the title suggests. Does everyone register
their dog with this organization for some reason? I'm not sure why you'd want
to do that.

~~~
dagenix
I think "deceiving title choice" is a bit strong. Of course you can name your
dog whatever you want. I highly doubt that anyone read this and actually
thought that there was some sort of global law requiring this.

> That's much less interesting to me than the title suggests.

I'm having a hard time imagining some more interesting, plausible thing that
you thought the title suggested.

~~~
bscphil
Fair enough, I suppose I should have worded my complaint the other way around.
A better title would have been "Why only 37 dogs of each breed can have the
same name registered at the American Kennel Club".

Self-diagnosing a little, I think my skeptical attitude towards institutions
is acting up here. It's weird to me when people use "name" when what they
really mean is "name registered with institution X". I don't see why anyone
should care what the AKC thinks of their dog's name, in kind of the same way
that registering a name for a star in a star registry is similarly stupid.

~~~
tty2300
I was expecting some kind of statistics showing the common dog names and the
number of dogs of each type kept as pets.

~~~
philshem
It’s in German, but here’s open data about dog names in the city of Zürich:

[https://data.stadt-zuerich.ch/dataset/pd-stapo-
hundenamen](https://data.stadt-zuerich.ch/dataset/pd-stapo-hundenamen)

The CSV should be clear enough:

[https://data.stadt-zuerich.ch/dataset/pd-stapo-
hundenamen/re...](https://data.stadt-zuerich.ch/dataset/pd-stapo-
hundenamen/resource/c1fd0489-19ef-47dd-9374-c4e702037c3c)

~~~
walshemj
So German cities have employees /systems whose job it is to register dog names
not totally sure that's the best use of taxpayers money - better bike lanes
and electric charging infrastructure or even _GASP_ better support for
homeless people.

~~~
ThePadawan
Worth noting: Switzerland has a pet tax, so that obviously pays for it.

------
function_seven
What problems would arise if they skipped numbers that exceed the 6
characters? Like, go from 37 to 39 (XXXIX). Then you have a solid run until
you run into 78.

And 78 ought to be enough for anyone.

~~~
yorwba
The Dog Name Check Tool is very clear on that matter:

"Roman numerals must not be included at the end of the dog's name. The AKC
reserves the right to assign roman numerals for identification purposes."

"The name you have chosen contains the restricted word _' XXXIX'_ which cannot
be used."

However...

"King XXXX has been verified for use for this breed."

So numbers from 40 onwards are not rejected by the automatic check. I don't
know whether an application would be handled by a human who might notice this,
though.

~~~
williamdclt
40 is XL, not XXXX. "King XL" is rejected (and sounds like a condom brand)

~~~
yorwba
Ok, it seems like they only recognize subtractive notation. Nonetheless,
numbers from L onward seem to work, so if you want that distinct "roman
numeral" look, you could choose "King LXVII".

~~~
ratmice
For some reason i would be suprised if they check for unicode roman numerals,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerals_in_Unicode#Roman_nume...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerals_in_Unicode#Roman_numerals)

~~~
yorwba
They don't check for them, they just forcibly convert them into ASCII by
taking the lowest byte of the Unicode code point, turning
"ⅠⅡⅢⅣⅤⅥⅦⅧⅨⅩⅪⅫⅬⅭⅮⅯⅰⅱⅲⅳⅴⅵⅶⅷⅸⅹⅺⅻⅼⅽⅾⅿ" into "`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~\x7f".
A few of these characters get rejected, though curiously not the last one,
which is nonprintable.

------
topicseed
Most AKC-registered dogs belong to a breeder's kennel or bloodline. You never
really register "Max" to the AKC. You generally register Hilly Billy's Max The
Beau. Even if at home you just use Max, and Hilly Billy is the kennel affix.

It is a little like horses, and their insane official names.

~~~
wjossey
Yep! My dog has an insane official name.

I got special permission from her breeder to use their kennel in the name,
even though she isn’t being raised by them.

Dry Pond’s Eager Big Lady Mountain Goat Meghan.

Each part of her name is a part of her story. But her name is Meghan.

------
dredmorbius
Vaguely related: 1888 was the longest year in history, to date --
typographically as expressed in Roman numerals.

Thirteen characters: MDCCCLXXXVIII.

That record will stand until tied in 2388 (MMCCCLXXXVIII), and won't be
exceeded until 2888 (MMDCCCLXXXVIII).

~~~
function_seven
Kids these days have it easy with their movie credits. In my day, you had to
pause the tape to work out what year the movie was copyrighted.

 _Die Hard_ : MCMLXXXVIII

 _Avengers: Endgame_ : MMXIX

~~~
mongol
Why do movie credits use roman numerals for production year in the first
place?

~~~
dredmorbius
Possibly: "deception theory".

[https://web.archive.org/web/20120822041637/https://newsblaze...](https://web.archive.org/web/20120822041637/https://newsblaze.com/story/20120820063820ssid.nb/topstory.html)

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1934990.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1934990.stm)

------
protomyth
You know it is late or your mind is in a sad state when you picture the exact
tables you would need to make this work in a relational database. It is
amazing the amount of real versions of the apocryphal railroad width stories
out in the world.

------
saghm
> Evidently they decided six characters gave them the best trade-off between
> flexibility and cost of typesetting?

They didn't think that using Arabic rather than Roman numerals gave them a
better tradeoff?

~~~
protomyth
These are names, and its traditional to use Roman numerals with names for
people, and many treat dogs like people, so....

~~~
thaumasiotes
That analogy is broken; it's traditional to use Roman numerals to indicate
that _people_ hold the _n_ th instance of the same name in a line of
patrilineal descent (or, even more traditionally, a line of rulership). Roger
White's son could be Roger White II; Roger White IV's son is definitely Roger
White V.

But two Roger Whites from separate families won't use numbers at all; both of
them are just Roger White. The AKC is numbering unrelated dogs.

And we appear to use arabic numerals for that use case: see
[https://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/26880947/lee6-wins-
us-w...](https://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/26880947/lee6-wins-us-women-
open-pockets-1m)

~~~
tlb
No descent is implied when numbers are used for monarchs and popes. John XXIII
was the 23rd pope named John (20th century), a long time after John XXII in
the 14th century. Queen Elizabeth II of England (current) is not a direct
descendant from Queen Elizabeth I (16th century).

~~~
thaumasiotes
Descent is implied, just not genealogical descent. John XXIII is the 23rd Pope
John in the same line of papacy. Pope Benedict XIII (17th century) is the 13th
Pope Benedict in that line, but Pope Benedict XIII (14th-15th century) was the
13th Pope Benedict in the line of Popes in Avignon. Henry IV of England was
the fourth King Henry of England; Henry IV of France was the fourth King Henry
of France; like the Popes, they are two different people tracked in two
different lines of descent.

~~~
badwolf
I suppose you could say it's similar with AKC dogs.

Spot III the Chihuahua vs Spot III the Beagle

~~~
thaumasiotes
What is the relationship between Spot III the beagle and Spot IV the beagle?

There isn't one; they're named in parallel.

------
jancsika
What if any are the restrictions on characters in the dog's name?

GOODBOY_FLUFFBALL_TAILWAGGER_DOGGO_BESTY_4EVAEVA~1

GOODBOY_FLUFFBALL_TAILWAGGER_DOGGO_BESTY_4EVAEVA~2

Etc.

~~~
logicallee
No dog may be called exactly "con" or "aux" :)

(kidding)

~~~
anticensor
A pet called com1 may experience burocratic issues.

/s

------
maxander
A quirk of an old, badly implemented database... from before the days of
databases.

~~~
Maxious
You can still make a varchar(7) column if you want

------
GICodeWarrior
When I saw "purebred" and "AKC", my mind immediately went to:

The Bizarre Truth About Purebred Dogs (and Why Mutts Are Better) - Adam Ruins
Everything

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCv10_WvGxo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCv10_WvGxo)

~~~
2muchcoffeeman
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk/7620507.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk/7620507.stm)

~~~
goldenkey
Shelters are full of dogs that breeders surrender because the offspring
weren't to their liking or diseased or imbred. It's quite sad and we shouldn't
be supporting purebred breeders anymore. They are trading other creatures'
pain for their own gain and profit :-/

~~~
dymk
Shelters are also full of dogs with severe behavioral disorders which can't be
treated or managed effectively. How confident are you in selecting a shelter
dog which might live with you for another 10, 12 years, versus a dog from a
breeder that you know the genealogy of (and therefore the parents,
grandparents behavioral traits)?

There's a difference between buying from a backyard breeder who doesn't care
about the quality of dogs they're producing, and a quality breeder who vets
buyers, parental lines, and has offspring contracts to prevent future unwanted
litters.

~~~
craigsmansion
Sorry, but no.

Breeders, even if ethical, are part of the problem. Just because they try and
reduce the chance of genetic defects by avoiding direct inbreeding, it's still
a minor statistical manipulation.

> (and therefore the parents, grandparents behavioral traits)?

Behavioural traits (with very few exceptions) vary more widely in between
individuals within a breed than from breed to breed.

I know people can get _very_ defensive about their best friends, but purebreds
will have genetic deficiencies. That's no reason to love your current pooch
any less, but do give cross-breeds some consideration for your next member of
the pack.

As silly as "labradoodle" sounds, these people have the right idea.

~~~
ShlomoS
>Behavioural traits (with very few exceptions) vary more widely in between
individuals within a breed than from breed to breed.

No they absolutely do not. There is nothing to suggest this, and overwhelming
evidence to the contrary.

>but purebreds will have genetic deficiencies.

No, some subset of purebreds will have genetic defects. Just as some subset of
mutts will.

>As silly as "labradoodle" sounds, these people have the right idea.

Why? They are doing the same thing you are complaining about, just using a
specific cross of two breeds rather than a specific single breed.

~~~
craigsmansion
> There is nothing to suggest this, and overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

I'm willing to read a good citation here if you have one, but the
"overwhelming evidence" lies on the other side where docile and submissive
specimens of fighting breeds and aggressive and dominant specimens of family-
friendly breeds can be easily observed. There is plenty to suggest this.

> No, some subset of purebreds will have genetic defects. Just as some subset
> of mutts will.

These subsets are not equal. I'll clarify in a bit.

> Why? They are doing the same thing you are complaining about, just using a
> specific cross of two breeds rather than a specific single breed.

That's not how genetics work. Inbreeding increases the number of recessive
genes floating around in the gene pool, increasing the number of carriers.

Say, for simplicity's sake, hip dysplasia is bound to a single recessive gene.
If you cross a breed that is prone to hip dysplasia with one that isn't, none
of the offspring will suffer from hip dysplasia, and it will halve the number
of carriers of the recessive gene in the genetic lineup.

Do that a couple of generations with different breeds, and it starts becoming
very unlikely that two recessive genes for dysplasia will match up.

Now understand that a lot of genetic diseases are the result of the
interactions of many genes of which the exact mechanism is unclear, and it
should become clear there is no solid way to prevent a disease from expressing
itself through careful monitoring.

For now, the best way to guarantee a healthy dog is to mix in new genes and
keep the gene pool healthy, which is very much the opposite of breeding for
conformity.

------
wmeredith
Ugh, this story interesting but I despise Twitter’s UI. Why is this being told
through this medium?

~~~
codegladiator
Meanwhile, I get a "you have been rate limited"... Which I don't understand,
opening a Twitter link for first time in the last 4 days (been traveling)...
Wasn't expecting this.

~~~
ebg13
That happens on links to Twitter from HN on mobile. You have to reload the
browser page.

Surely at least one Twitter SWE reads HN, so it's probably known and done
maliciously.

