Kiyomi Lowe regularly hears people mispronounce her name or sometimes forget it altogether. “I get Naomi, Kaiomi, sometimes Kimmy,” she said. It doesn’t bother her: “I’ll respond to anything.”

She is less forgiving when friends and acquaintances forget the name of her dog, a shar-pei. “I get Bruno a lot,” she said. To which she responds: “‘No, it’s Brutus!’ The dog doesn’t care. But I care for the dog.”

Ms. Lowe is a stylist at Al’s Barber Shop, a popular six-chair salon in Boulder near the campus of the University of Colorado. On a recent morning, she fell into a spirited conversation with her fellow stylists and several customers over a delicate question: Should you be responsible for remembering the name of a friend’s pet? What’s the etiquette?

“A big question,” said Jen Himes, a stylist, who conceded that she sometimes made a naming mistake, which pained her. “I’ve gotten a lot of pet names wrong. I’m, like, ‘How’s Pookie?’ And they’re, like, ‘It’s Rufus!’ or whatever.”

“Most people laugh,” she said. “But some people are, like, ‘That’s offensive.’”

Kiyomi Lowe with Brutus, her shar-pei. “The funnier the name is, the easier it is to remember,” Ms. Lowe said. “Like Derek.”
Tilly, left, and Frida. Does the burden of recollection lie with the friend? Or is it the pet owner’s responsibility to pick a memorable name?

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