Whether it’s a name inspired by a Star Wars villain, a beloved cookie, another animal, sports team, or the more traditional Charlie or Lucy, you can search for your pet’s name in this tracker and see what other Houstonians are naming their canine companions.
Here, the tracker narrows the name pool by breed, specifically the 10 most common breeds. Does a golden retriever look more like Daisy than a Max, the top name for German shepherds? Insert your dog’s breed and find out who shares his or her name.
The data shows that since 2020, the top 10 names have remained mostly unchanged, with Luna and Bella still leading the pack.
Other names did make some moves. While Maggie fell from 9th in 2020 to 15th in 2026, Teddy rocketed from 28th place in 2020 to 7th place in 2026. Milo also climbed the ranks from 16th to tie the consistently popular Rocky for 5th.
Here we have four categories — animals, plants, foods and local references — that inspired Houston pet owners. How many dogs in Houston are named Puppy? What about a dog named Bear, Oreo, Willow … or Houston? Is your dog the only canine in the city called Bunny? Take a look.
About the data
The Chronicle analyzed about 45,000 first time registrations of dogs with BARC Animal Shelter & Adoptions from 2020 through June 2026. The Chronicle used Claude Sonnet 5 to help categorize almost 800 unique breeds as dogs, cats, or other animals, to standardize more than 500 unique dog breed names, and to identify keywords that help sort names into different thematic categories. The Chronicle reviewed and edited each list of breeds or keywords generated by Claude before use in analysis.
CreditsData analysis by Aileen Clarke. Illustrations by Aileen Clarke. Design and development by Aileen Clarke and Hanna Zakharenko/Hearst Newspapers Devhub. Reporting by Yvette Orozco. Editing by Caroline Ghisolfi, Dana Burke and Janie Haseman/Hearst Newspapers Devhub.
Originally published on Aug. 26, 2026