2,966 dog names in this catalogue are names English Wiktionary also files as a given name for a person. They average 160 registrations each against 70 across all dog names — more than double. Naming a dog the way you would name a child is not an emerging trend in these registers. By weight it is the majority behaviour.
A classification, not an opinion
A name is in this slice because a dictionary lists it as a given name, not because it sounds human to anyone here. The distinction has teeth: Bear and Ziggy feel like dog names and are outside the slice, while Bella and Max are inside it because people are called both.
Two beats, arrived at sideways
1,926 of the slice has two syllables — the same default the rest of the catalogue settles on, reached from a different direction. English given names are mostly two beats, so choosing a person's name hands you the commonest dog-name shape without your having chosen it.
The long ones are where it pays
286 run to eight letters or more and average 97 registrations, against 38 for long dog names generally. Everywhere else in this catalogue length costs use. Inside this slice it stops doing that.
Cats do it differently
Cats carry 2,032 of these names at 221 registrations each — fewer names, used harder. That is the cat catalogue's habit in general, and a good reason not to read a dog figure as a fact about pets.
Is it normal to give a dog a human name?
In these registers it is the norm rather than the exception: 2,966 dog names are dictionary-listed given names and they average 160 registrations each, against 70 across all dog names.
Which human names are used most on dogs?
Sort the list above by count and it answers itself from the live catalogue. The ordering shifts every time a register is recounted, which is why this page does not hard-code a top ten.
How is a human name identified here?
By whether English Wiktionary lists the word as a given name for a person. It is a dictionary lookup, not a judgement about whether a name sounds human.
Every count on this site is a tally of real registrations: pet licences and shelter intakes published as open data by New York, Seattle, Austin, Montgomery County, Cambridge, Zurich, Basel and four Australian councils. Popularity here is the average share a name holds across those registers, so a name common in a small city is not buried by one common in a large one. Five of the eleven registers are North American and they supply 86% of the records, so read the ordering as naming in those places rather than worldwide. Browse the whole catalogue or read how the data is put together.