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235 Scientific Cat Names: Our Top Picks for Your Intellectual Cat

Kathryn Copeland

By Kathryn Copeland

Scientific Cat Names

Is your cat a smarty-pants, or maybe you just wish it was a smarty-pants? Or perhaps your cat belongs to an intelligent household. Regardless, you’ve arrived at this article as you’re obviously trying to come up with a name that will encapsulate your cat’s braininess.

We know that, for the most part, cats are intelligent little creatures, so it’s a great idea to incorporate this aspect of your cat into a name. Or perhaps you have an appreciation of science and research.

We have 235 names for you to look at to give you some ideas. They all have something to do with, well, smart things.

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How to Name Your Cat

Beyond how smart (or not smart) your cat is, you can find inspiration for your cat’s name in several ways. The colors and patterns of cats and the breed itself can lead to the perfect name. Your cat’s size and shape can also lead to interesting and funny names.

Going ironic is a fun way to name your cat. Some people like to name their cat’s traditional dog names like Rover, or if your cat is tiny, you can call it Atlas (the giant who holds up the sky) or your large cat Jellybean.

Finally, you can think about some of your cat’s unique quirks and personality traits as inspiration. There’s nature, such as flowers and plants, as well as other animals and food. The choices are endless!

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Female Scientist Names

Right off the bat, we’ll start with the names of female scientists for your female cat. Of course, your cat doesn’t have to be female for these names, but these names all honor these amazing women who made significant contributions to our society. You can use the first or last name, or both! You can also shorten names. For example, call your cat Somer after Mary Somerville.

  • Ada Lovelace
  • Barbara McClintock
  • Caroline Herschel
  • Christiane Nusslein-Volhard
  • Dorothy Hodgkin
  • Elizabeth Blackwell
  • Emilie du Chatelet
  • Gertrude Elion
  • Irène Curie-Joliot (daughter or Marie Curie)
  • Jane Cooke Wright
  • Jane Goodall
  • Jennifer Doudna
  • Katherine Freese
  • Lise Meitner
  • Mae C. Jemison
  • Maria Goeppert Mayer
  • Maria Mitchell
  • Marie Curie
  • Mary Anning
  • Mary Somerville
  • Rachel Carson
  • Rita Levi-Montalcini
  • Rosalind Franklin
  • Sara Seager
  • Sau Lan Wu
  • Tiera Guinn
  • Vera Rubin
cat in glasses with book
Image Credit: Kashaeva Irina, Shutterstock

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Male Scientist Names

Just like the female scientist names above, here are the names of well-known male scientists. Again, you can use it for male or female cats, and you can go with first and/or last names.

  • Alan Turing
  • Albert Einstein
  • Alfred Nobel
  • Alexander Fleming
  • Alexander Graham Bell
  • Andre-Marie Ampère
  • Archimedes
  • Benjamin Franklin
  • Bill Nye
  • Carl Linnaeus
  • Carl Sagan
  • Charles Darwin
  • Galileo Galilei
  • George Washington Carver
  • Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
  • Gregor Mendel
  • Isaac Newton
  • John Forbes Nash Jr.
  • Louis Pasteur
  • Michael Faraday
  • Neil deGrasse Tyson
  • Nicolaus Copernicus
  • Nikola Tesla
  • Pythagoras
  • Srinivasa Ramanujan
  • Stephen Hawking
  • Thomas Edison
cat holding a thermometer
Image Credit: Coryn, Shutterstock

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Names Based on the Sciences

We’ll separate the different sciences into their own lists, but these are all just examples that hopefully will get your imagination going.

Mathematics

  • Algebra
  • Axiom
  • Axis
  • Calculus
  • Ellipse
  • Fractal
  • Geometry
  • Hilbert
  • Infinity
  • Logic
  • Vector
  • Venn
  • Zeta

Chemistry

You should get your hands on a periodic table of elements as there’s a lot to choose from. We’re including a few elements here, but there’s not enough time or room for all of them.

  • Atom
  • Atomic
  • Catalyst
  • Cobalt
  • Copper
  • Effusion
  • Electron
  • Fission
  • Ion
  • Radium
  • Rhodium
  • Selenium

Physics

  • Ampere
  • Boson
  • Cosmic
  • Doppler
  • Gravity
  • Joule
  • Kelvin
  • Kinetic
  • Neutrino
  • Nuclear
  • Pascal
  • Photon
  • Quantum
  • Quark
  • Ultraviolet
  • Velocity

Astronomy

  • Barlow
  • Binary
  • Celestial
  • Comet
  • Eclipse
  • Equinox
  • Galaxy
  • Meridian
  • Meteor
  • Milky Way
  • Nebula
  • Quasar
  • Solar
  • Solstice
  • Star
  • Zenith
cat astronaut
Image by: Vadim Sadovski, Shutterstock

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Names Based on Intellectuals

Here, we’ll go over the names of some famous intellectuals who weren’t necessarily scientists. Again, the same rules apply. You can go with shortened versions of these names or first and/or last names. These are also a combination of male and female intellectuals.

  • Anna Freud
  • Adam Smith
  • Adi Shankara
  • Aristotle
  • Carl Jung
  • Confucius
  • David Hume
  • Dian Fossey
  • Francis Bacon
  • Friedrich Nietzsche
  • George Bernard Shaw
  • Hannah Arendt
  • Herodotus
  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  • Jean-Paul Sartre
  • John Dewey
  • John Locke
  • Leonardo da Vinci
  • Margaret Mead
  • Mary Wollstonecraft
  • Max Weber
  • Michael Foucault
  • Noam Chomsky
  • Plato
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • René Déscartes
  • Sigmund Freud
  • Simone de Beauvoir
  • Socrates
  • Thomas Hobbes
  • Voltaire
  • Zora Neale Hurston
a close up of an orange tabby cat
Image by: Sam Chang, Unsplash

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Famous Authors

We tend to equate intelligence with scientists and philosophers, but there are many authors of fictional works that are intellectuals. So, again, we’ve mixed the men with the women, and you can play with these names as you see fit.

  • Charles Dickens
  • Charlotte Brontë
  • Daphne du Maurier
  • Ernest Hemingway
  • Franz Kafka
  • Fyodor Dostoevsky
  • George Orwell
  • Isaac Asimov
  • Jane Austen
  • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  • John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
  • Lewis Carroll
  • Margaret Atwood
  • Mark Twain
  • Mary Shelley
  • Maya Angelou
  • Oscar Wilde
  • Shirley Jackson
  • Toni Morrison
  • William Shakespeare
  • Umberto Eco
orange cat in glasses with book
Image by: MyraMyra, Shutterstock

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Famous Composer Names

There’s no question that we’ve all heard about how many of our composers were geniuses. Mozart anyone?

  • Antonio Vivaldi
  • Clara Schumann
  • Claude Debussy
  • Franz Liszt
  • Franz Peter Schubert
  • Frédéric Chopin
  • George Frideric Handel
  • Hildegard of Bingen
  • Johann Sebastian Bach
  • Johannes Brahms
  • Ludwig van Beethoven
  • Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
  • Richard Wagner
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
grey cat on piano
Image by: Pixabay

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Famous Artist Names

And then there’s art. It takes a certain amount of genius to create art, and naming your cat after one of these artists puts them in good company.

  • Andy Warhol
  • Claude Monet
  • Edvard Munch
  • Edward Hopper
  • Frida Kahlo
  • Georgia O’Keeffe
  • Henri Matisse
  • Jackson Pollock
  • Jan Vermeer
  • Jean-Michel Basquiat
  • Michelangelo
  • Pablo Picasso
  • Rene Magritte
  • Rembrandt
  • Salvador Dalí
  • Sando Botticelli
  • Vincent van Gogh
  • Yayoi Kusama
white cat with blue and green eyes
Image by: Pixabay

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Names Based on Food and Drinks

Food and drink don’t tend to be intellectual, of course. But when something is elite and expensive, we tend to associate it with class. Almost anything French sounds pretty classy.

When you imagine intellectuals standing around and talking about philosophy, you might also imagine they are eating hors d’oeuvres and drinking wine, so let’s have at it!

Names Based on Food

  • Beef Wellington
  • Caviar
  • Ceviche
  • Chanterelle
  • Crème Brûlée
  • Escargot
  • Filet Mignon
  • Foie Gras
  • Galette
  • Quiche
  • Risotto
  • Souffle
  • Tiramisu
  • Truffles

Names Based on Drinks

  • Amaretto
  • Beaujolais
  • Cabernet
  • Champagne
  • Chardonnay
  • Chianti
  • Espresso
  • Latte
  • Merlot
  • Pinot
black cat on the grass
Image by: milesz, Pixabay

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Names Based on Fictional Characters

And last, but certainly not least, we have fictional characters known for their intellect. You can also try looking through the list of characters from your favorite TV shows, movies, and books.

  • Frasier Crane
  • Gandalf
  • Hermione Granger
  • Jimmy Neutron
  • Lisa Simpson
  • Matilda
  • Moriarty
  • Morpheus
  • Rick Sanchez
  • Sheldon Cooper
  • Sherlock Holmes
  • Spock
  • Velma Dinkley
  • Violet Baudelaire
  • Yoda
a kurilian bobtail cat in a forest
Image by: Natalia Fedosova, Shutterstock

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Use Your Imagination!

You can also think about adding titles to your cat’s name as a way of making your cat sound smarter or more important, such as:

  • Professor
  • Her or His Majesty
  • Queen/King
  • Madame
  • Sir/Mrs. or Miss
  • Senator
  • Dame
  • Prince/Princess
  • General
  • Sergeant
  • Colonel
White ragdoll with a crown
Image by: xixicatphotos, Shutterstock

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Conclusion

In the end, cats don’t care about their names. What they care about is getting your attention, care, and love! So, you can pick a name that sounds right, and you’ll both be happy! Not all the names on our lists are necessarily good names for a cat. But with a bit of tweaking, any one of these names could be the perfect name for your kitty.

You’ll also want to double-check the pronunciation of some of these names since several of them are from different countries and don’t sound the way they are spelled to North Americans. If there’s a specific branch of science that interests you the most, then just search terms based on that science. If physics fascinates you, look at more of the terms that are commonly (or not so commonly) used in that field of study.

We hope that if you haven’t found the right name from our lists, perhaps you’ve been inspired enough to figure out the right one on your own. Your intelligent cat should have a name that tells the world that you have one smart kitty.


Featured Image Credit: Kristina Kokhanova, Shutterstock

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