A Dog Named "Perro"

"So instead of calling me "dragon" in your tongue, you'll call me "dragon" in some other tongue?"

— Draco, Dragonheart

You're writing a work and need to decide what to name a pet or another type of creature that appears in it. You could just go with A Dog Named "Dog", but that would sound uncreative. Besides, no one names their pets like that in real life. But wait a second! You don't have to name the creature after what it's called in English — you could just use another language.

Another reason is that the animal may actually come from a place where a different language is spoken, and using the animal type in that language may be used as a means to indicate the animal's language. Another reason is the use of an animal's scientific name, which is usually the name of the animal in Greek or Latin.

A Dog Named "Perro" is a variant of A Dog Named "Dog", in which a thing's name is what that thing is called in a foreign language, rather than the work's native language.

Subtrope of Bilingual Bonus and Meaningful Name. Sister trope to A Dog Named "Dog" and A Lizard Named "Liz".

Often, Keep It Foreign will often be used in other regional versions of the work. However, it may not be; and sometimes an original may have a genuine A Dog Named "Dog" and the translation leaves the name untouched; so always check applicability in the work's original language.

Oh, by the way, about the trope name — Perro is the Spanish word for "dog".

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In the English subs of the TBS version of Aggressive Retsuko, the series' fennec fox character (referred to as Fenneko in the original Japanese version and all versions of the Netflix reboot) is named Zelda after the fennec's scientific name, Vulpes zerda.
• Daltanious: The Lion mecha that forms the Super Robot is called Beralios^note Leo is Latin for "Lion". His female companion is called Meralion.
• In Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, Fujiwara's pet dog is named Pes, which is Czech for "dog".
• Metropolis (2001): Shinsaku Ban decides to name his Robot Buddy detective "Pero" explaining that he once had a very good dog with that same name. The robot questions his choice, but Kenichi's uncle dismisses it, saying Pero was a great dog.
• One Piece: Tony Tony Chopper, a reindeer made sentient after eating the Human-Human Fruit, derives his name from the Japanese word for Reindeer, "Tonakai".
• Pokémon Adventures: In the X & Y chapter, X nicknames most of his Pokémon after their names in the French localization with the exception being his first Pokémon Kangaskhan, who are named after their Japanese name (the English name in the English translation).
• Primitive Boy Ryu: The Big Bad, Tyranno. His name is derived from "Tyrannosaurus Rex", which itself is derived from the Latin "Tyrannosaurus", (meaning "King").
• Seraph of the End: The Queen of the vampires is named Krul, derived from the Polish word "Król" (pronounced the same way), meaning "King".
• Voltes V: Prince Heinel's name is derived from the form of address "your highness".

Comic Books

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (IDW): Alopex, a mutant arctic fox, is named for her base species' old scientific name; Alopex lagopus^note changed to Vulpes lagopus in the 2000s after DNA analysis.

Fanfiction

• Junior Officers: One of the Junior Officers is a fox from Iwaki, Japan named Kitsune (the Japanese word for "fox").

Films — Animated

• Barbie: Mariposa: The titular Mariposa is a butterfly fairy; "mariposa" is the Spanish word for "butterfly". The Spanish dub inverts this by changing her name to Butterfly.
• Simba from The Lion King (1994) is named after the word for "lion" in Swahili.
• The main villain of Mulan, Shan Yu, has a falcon named Hayabusa. Hayabusa is the Japanese word for such a falcon.
• Puss in Boots: The Last Wish: Perrito, Puss's dog companion, is named after the Spanish word for "puppy".
• Song of the Sea: Cú, Ben's Old English Sheepdog, is named after the Irish for "hound".
• Chief Bogo from Zootopia. He's a Cape buffalo whose name derives from the Swahili word "M'bogo", which literally means "Cape buffalo".

Films — Live-Action

• Avatar: The Way of Water has a shark-like Pandoran predator called Akula, which is the Russian for shark.
• Dragonheart: When Bowen asks the dragon for a name to call him other than "dragon", the dragon refuses to share his name in his own language, so Bowen decides to call him "Draco", after a constellation in the night sky. Draco snarks that he's basically stopped calling him "dragon" in English and in order to call him "dragon" in Latin, but accepts the name.

Literature

• The Chronicles of Narnia: "Aslan" and "Tash" mean "lion" and "stone" respectively in Turkish. "Jadis" means "witch" in Persian.
• Harry Potter: Downplayed. Remus Lupin's last name is Old French for "Of a wolf" or "pertaining to a wolf", giving away that he is a werewolf.
• The majority of the characters in The Jungle Book are named after what their species are called in Hindi, including Baloo the bear, Hathi the elephant, etc. From the non-Mowgli stories, there's Kotick the fur seal from "The White Seal", whose name means "fur seal" in Russian.
• Princesses of the Pizza Parlor: In Cookies and Campers: When the game setting is being explained, a hypothetical Felitzfeleenan is named mainly with a Punny Name formed from words meaning "Cat" in non-English. "Neko" from Japanese and "Gato" from Spanish:
  "Felitzfeleena", [Helen] said. "City of—"
  "Kitty cats!" squeaked Claire. "I think he got that name from Spanish. Oh! I bet they all speak like Spanish kitties and say stuff like 'Hola, my name is Señor Eneko Gatista de Meowtonya y... y Ronroneos! You killed my father, prepare to die!'"
• Redwall: Brian Jacques often used words from other languages to name his characters, namely Latin. For instance, Mellus and Melesme's names are derived from melus, the Latin word for "badger", while Lutra is the Latin word for "otter". He also (possibly mistakenly) said that Plumpen's name was the Dutch word for "dormouse".

Live-Action TV

• Bear in the Big Blue House:
  • Ursa's name means "bear" in Latin, which is what she is.
  • Luna's name means "moon" in Spanish and Italian
• Sesame Street: In Episode 2384, Luis names a stray kitten "Gatita", the feminine version of the Spanish word for "kitten".

Video Games

• Animal Crossing: Ursala, a bear villager, is named after the Latin word for bear, "ursa."
• Arknights has a literal example. The "Ancient" race based on dogs is actually called "Perro". On the other hand, the wolf-like race is "Lupo", the foxes are "Vulpo", etc...
• The Battle Cats: Behemoth enemies are usually named after the name of their species or genus in Latin. For example, Vermilingua Rangmaster is a Behemoth anteater, and Vermilingua is the scientific name for anteaters.
• Deltarune: Maus and Mauswheel are enemies that combine elements of computer mice and real mice. Accordingly, both of them are named after the German word for mouse, "maus."
• Gatomon in the English dub of Digimon Adventure is an example of this, as Gato means cat in Spanish. Likewise many other Digimon, including Kabuterimon (kabuto is beetle in Japanese), Angemon (angel), Tyrannomon (Tyrannosaurus rex), Andromon (android), and Leomon (leo being lion in Latin). The mon part in all Digimon names just means monster.
• Elden Ring:
  • One of the companions of Ranni the Witch is Blaidd the Half-Wolf. "Blaidd" being Welsh for "wolf". Appropriately, he speaks with a Welsh accent.
  • Similarly, Latenna the Albinauric's wolf companion/mount is named Lobo, which is Spanish for "wolf".
• In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, "The Circle", senior members of the Companions are actually werewolves. Several of their names simply translate to "wolf" or "werewolf" in another language, doubling as a Bilingual Bonus. Kodlak comes from Vlkodlak, which is Czech for werewolf. The brothers Farkas and Vilkas names mean "wolf" in Hungarian and Lithuanian, respectively.
• Final Fantasy: There is a recurring wolf-like enemy across the franchise that, in English, is called the Silver Lobo. "Lobo" translates to wolf in Spanish and Portuguese.
• Gato Roboto does this in the title via Gratuitous Spanish. To nobody's surprise, you play as a cat in a robot suit.
• The Legend of Dark Witch 3 has a boss named Brujita, a Fae in the form of a Cute Witch. "Brujita" is Spanish for "little witch".
• Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate: One of the supporting characters intruduced in this expansion is a Felyne who helps the Argosy Captain called Neko (Means Cat). Yes, the clarification encased by the parentheses is part of his name. He also makes an appearance in Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate and both versions of Monster Hunter Generations, alongside the aforementioned Argosy Captain.
• Pokémon: Some of the original Japanese names for Pokémon are words in English. For example, the Pokémon known in English as Charmeleon is called "Lizardo", and Haunter is called "Ghost".
• Goomba from the Super Mario series of video games is a mushroom Mook with a cartoonish face and two small feet. Its name is derived from the Hungarian word gomba, which means "mushroom".

Visual Novels

• In the English version of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies, the samurai prosecutor Simon Blackquill's pet hawk is named "Taka" (Japanese for "Hawk" or "Falcon").

Webcomics

• The main characters of Vixen Logic are anthropomorphic foxes named after their specific species, while most of them have English names Ferra (Vulpes ferrilata) and Zerda (V. zerda) are named after their scientific names.

Web Originals

• The hololive VTuber duo Fuwamoco has a doglike mascot/pet called Perroccino or Pero for short. While they stream in two languages, those languages are English and Japanese, making Pero an example of this either way.
• Wayward Guide for the Untrained Eye: The "Connor" of Connor Creek means "lover of wolves" in Gaelic. This gives away the fact that the town founders were in fact werewolves themselves, up to and including Desmond Brewer/Connor, who is revealed to be the head of the clan.

Western Animation

• Adventure Time: In "Wizard", the main antagonist's name is Bufo, a wizard made out of several tadpoles in a giant toad. "Bufo" is a Latin word for "toad" and a genus of toads in biological classification.
• American Dragon: Jake Long:
  • Tiburon is a sharkman and Tiburon means "shark" in Spanish.
  • Jake himself arguably qualifies (as does anyone else in his family with his abilities), as "Long" means "Dragon" in Mandarin.
• Amphibia:
  • Captain Bufo's name comes from Latin word for "toad" and a genus of toads in biological classification.
  • King Andrias may also count as Andrias is the scientific name for giant salamanders.
• Arthur: In "Best Enemies," One-Shot Character W.D. Merkle's mom is named Ursa. She and her family are anthropomorphic bears, and "ursa" is the Latin word for "bear."
• Darkwing Duck: Overlapping with A Lizard Named "Liz", the Starter Villain is an anthropomorphic bull named Taurus Bulba. Taurus is a Latin word for "bull".
• Dora the Explorer: Dora's dog is named Perrito, which is Spanish for "puppy".
• Hilda: Every Nisse is named Tontu, in Finnish folklore a Tonttu is a household spirit often considered equivalent to the Nordic Nisse.
• Kaeloo: Kaeloo's name sounds like "kaeru", the Japanese word for frog, and that's what she is.
• Let's Go Luna!: Luna is a sentient moon and her name is Spanish and Italian for moon.
• My Life Me: Birch Small, the protagonist of the show, has a cat named Neko (the Japanese word for cat). This is likely meant to show how much of an Occidental Otaku Birch is.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Zecora's name comes from an old-fashioned Swahili word for "zebra".
• Rosie's Rules has Rosie's cat Gatita, which is "kitten" in Spanish.
• Samurai Jack: the Big Bad's name is Aku. Aku is a Japanese word that means "evil". Fitting for Anthropomorphic Personification. Or it can overlap with A Lizard Named "Liz" because it can be a shortened version of "akuma", a Japanese word that means "demon".
• Special Agent Oso: Oso is a sentient teddy bear and his name is the Spanish word for bear.
• Sushi Pack: The main characters and most of the Legion of Low Tide are Anthropomorphic Food based on and named after primarily animal-based dishes in Japanese cuisine. The titular pack has Tako the octopus and Kani the crab, while Maguro and Ikura are respectively named after the Japanese words for tuna meat and salmon roe. The Legion of Low Tide has Fugu the blowfish, Unagi the eel, and Uni the sea urchin, while Toro's name refers to fatty cuts of tuna meat.

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