The Best Orange Cat Names, From Cheeto to Clementine

If you have an orange cat, you’ve probably seen the internet memes. They tend to have a reputation for being silly, but we think cats of all colors are silly and unique and wonderful, and best of all? If you have an orange cat, they’re yours!

Just like the list of best black cat names, there really isn’t a best, right? Orange cats can be given a name that means something to you, makes you laugh, makes you remember a favorite movie or song, or only makes sense to you and your four-legged friend! We’re not here to judge, just give you ideas and also share some of the most popular orange cat names that we love!

Our two cats, Thelma and Louis, are mostly white, while Thelma has beautiful orange patches and Louis black patches. So I don’t think they qualify as a color per se. We chose to name them after an iconic movie duo, Thelma and Louise, because they were found in a car and the name just stuck (after several rounds of fails, like Ella and Louis, or Nina and Louis, or Simon and Ella. We were all over the place.).

The point is, no matter what name you decide to try, it’s important to be flexible if it’s not working. Practice saying it out loud to your cat for a few days and see if it sticks. When you know, you know!

I did a scan of Reddit for any threads about orange cat names and discovered that lots of current or future orange cat owners struggle to think of the right name. Having read through about 50 threads and some 600 comments, I thought I would pull together the most common names that came up, some of the funnier suggestions and the most famous orange cats from fiction. Finally, there is a mega-list of names, sorted by the food, fruit, or famous redhead your cat may be named after.

The names that come up over and over

There are so many threads out there asking for orange cat names, and if you browse through a couple, Ginger is mentioned more than any other. There’s even a long thread simply asking how many people had named their orange cat Ginger, so that one had a head start. Other names that are commonly mentioned include Cheese, Pumpkin, Marmalade, a great name with lots of nickname possibilities including Jam, Marmi and Lady Marmalade, and Cheddar.

Other common suggestions included Clementine, with several people commenting that cats with this name often got nicknames including Clem, Clems or Clemmie, Cheeto, Tangerine, Peaches, Mango, Julius, named after the mall drink Orange Julius and mentioned more than Garfield, of all things, and, drumroll please, Garfield.

I’d never talk anyone out of a name they love. Just know that if you choose Pumpkin or Cheeto for your cat then there’s a good chance that you will meet another Pumpkin or Cheeto at the vet. One orange cat owner wisely commented, “Don’t name him Pumpkin.” On the other end of the effort scale, my favorite answer in any of the threads was the shortest one. Short and to the point.

We named our previous orange cat Orange. 😂

— via Reddit.com

The cheese drawer

Then I found this whole thread dedicated to cheese names for an orange cat. Cheese names are basically their own genre with orange cats. Suggestions include Cheddar, Colby, Gouda, Brie, Asiago, Parmesan, Munster, which one person wished they’d gone with since they often call their cat a little monster, and Nacho, as another person had just gotten an orange kitten and named him Nacho Cheese…or just plain Nacho. One person commented that their friend has a cat named Gouda…and they call him Go. A cat named Go. I love it. So, here’s a look at the most popular food-related names for orange cats.

In another thread, someone has two orange cats named Mac and Cheese and is looking for a name that goes with them for their new third orange cat. Suggestions include Ham, as someone’s friend has an orange cat by that name, and Casserole, to be called Cass or Cassie. And one person pointed out that a cheese name can change with the cat’s mood.

I had a cat named Cheese. It’s cute and you should just go with a variety of different cheeses. When he’s being stinky you call him blue cheese or when he’s being stubborn he’s Parmesan cheese (bc it’s a hard cheese) 🤣

— via Reddit.com

If your orange cat is a girl

If you have a female orange cat, people likely comment on how rare it is for female cats to have orange fur. They’d be right that female orange cats are less common (more on why in the box below). That makes it fun to come up with a fittingly unusual name to match. Popular names include Clementine, Peaches, Marigold, Poppy, Buttercup, Winnie, Summer, Annie, Saffron and Apricot.

One person named their cat Miss Margaret Penelope Marmalade (nickname: Maggie). Another person was suggesting the name Anokhi, a Hindi word meaning unique. But my favorite suggestion for an orange girl was a pun, and it’s a good one.

Since she’s a rare, special wee one, I propose the name “Anomale” and you could call her Molly for short!

— via Reddit.com

Names for the one brain cell

On the internet, there’s a running joke that all orange cats share one brain cell which they take turns using. There’s an entire subreddit devoted to this idea called One Orange Braincell. At least one person in the threads said the one brain cell, and how orange cats act, is the main reason they wanted one.

Obviously those of us with orange cats know this isn’t true. They are just as smart and cute as all the other cats, and orange cat owners obviously adore their cats precisely because they’re sweet and silly and a little unruly. A lot of the cat names reflect this; they’re more likely to have a name that points to a crazy spirit rather than a name that references their orange fur. For instance, names of real orange cats from the threads include Jackhammer, Vengeance, Rubber Chicken, Pickles, Fishstick, Hashbrown as a middle name, and Dash. One person said of orange cats, “They all are Sour Patch,” which would also make a good name: Sour Patch. Another recommended Pickle, reasoning that the kitten “is definitely going to get himself into a few pickles being orange.” Another suggested OOBC, which stands for One Orange Brain Cell.

These are also run-of-the-mill human names that orange cats in the Reddit threads actually have, which might be my favorite category. Who doesn’t love an orange cat (or any cat) named Boris?

One poster to the subreddit shared a photo of their new orange cat with a note about how the foster family apparently forgot to give them the brain cell paperwork. This was one of the replies, though honestly we find it a little mean! (Maybe in a fun way?)

There is no brain cell, therefore there is no paperwork required. Enjoy your paperless orange!

— via Reddit.com

Famous orange cats worth borrowing from

Of the most famous cats, a lot of them are ironically orange. Garfield is the obvious one, and people do still use that name. Heathcliff is also from the comic strip world, while Morris was originally a rescue from a Chicago area animal shelter, as Morris is the orange tabby that has been the 9Lives cat food mascot since the late 1960s. In the Harry Potter books Hermione has a large ginger cat called Crookshanks. The ship’s cat in Alien is an orange tabby named Jonesy, who makes it through the whole movie. Goose is the name of the orange cat in Captain Marvel.

Milo is the adorable orange tabby kitten in The Adventures of Milo and Otis and Oliver & Company from Disney has another orange kitten, Oliver. Disney’s The Aristocats featured two orange cats, Toulouse (the orange kitten) and O’Malley, the scrappy orange and white alley cat. Simba, Tigger, Hobbes, Aslan…the list goes on. Another famous orange cat is the cat that starred in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and his name is, fittingly, Orangey.

My favorite famous orange cat has a better backstory than any of them. Winston Churchill’s house in Kent, Chartwell, currently under the care of the National Trust, has a tradition of a marmalade cat living there in perpetuity. For his 88th birthday Winston received a marmalade cat named Jock. His family’s request was that Chartwell always have a marmalade cat called Jock, with a white bib and four white socks, living there. Currently that’s Jock VII, a rescue cat.

The Name Bank

If nothing has stuck yet, there are 180 orange cat names sorted into boxes throughout this article. The rest are below, encompassing categories such as fruit and drinks, the spice rack, famous redheads, sunshine and fire-themed names, and punny orange cat names. Some include a note on where they come from.

The spice rack has some of the prettiest names I think.

Famous redheads count too, and so do names that simply mean red in other cultures and languages.

Then there’s anything the color of a fire, a sunset, or a pile of leaves.

I can’t promise you’ll want to say these out loud at the vet.

Two tricks for deciding

1. Browse shelter and rescue sites

The workers at rescues and shelters have to name dozens of cats each month. They must be bursting with name ideas. In the threads I saw orange cats who came from shelters named Sandcastle (their adopter almost kept it) and Waffle (for the color of a perfectly cooked waffle, duh), which are adorable. When we got Thelma and Louis from the rescue they were named Otis and Ollie. You can always just use the names for inspiration and find the ones that work for you like we did. One person in the threads found their cat’s name exactly this way.

Go look at shelter websites. They come up with the most unusual, cute names sometimes! I got my big orange boy Yorick from one and my present blue tabby friend Gilligan from another.

— via Reddit.com

Another person’s cat came home from the shelter as Pumpkin and didn’t stay Pumpkin.

He was Pumpkin when we adopted him. We named his Boris because he gave us Russian vibes…

— via Reddit.com

2. Say it out loud

Another suggestion for figuring out whether you like the name was saying it out loud. Say it like you’d yell at your cat when they’re in trouble on the counter. Some names may be beautiful on paper, but once you try to yell them across your apartment they just don’t sit well with you. One commenter was getting suggestions for names for their two orange brothers and was testing them exactly that way.

I’ve definitely tried yelling many of them just to see how they sound when the boys get in trouble 😂 and they definitely are trouble makers like most orange babies!

— via Reddit.com

So, tell us! Do you have an orange cat? What’s their name? Let us know in the comments, we’d love to add them to our list!