Border Collie Name Generator

Generate Border Collie names from the shepherds' tradition and beyond: short call names like Moss, Fly, Glen and Meg, Borders rivers and hills like Teviot and Cheviot, agility names like Dash and Zigzag, and clever-dog names like Chaser and Einstein.

About Border Collie names

Working Border Collies have a naming tradition of their own. Shepherds give a dog a short call name, usually one syllable, that carries across a hillside and cannot be mistaken for a command: Moss, Fly, Glen, Meg, Nell, Cap, Roy, Jess. That style is the largest group in this list. Two entries belong to dogs that every history of the breed mentions: Old Hemp, born in Northumberland in 1893 and regarded as the founding sire of the breed, and Wiston Cap, the 1965 International Supreme Champion.

The breed takes its name from the border country between Scotland and England, so the second group is a map of it: rivers such as Teviot, Yarrow, Ettrick and Coquet, hills such as Cheviot, Eildon and Windy Gyle, and towns from Kelso to Rothbury. Hill-farm words follow (Bracken, Tarn, Haar, Hirsel, Stell), along with trial-field terms like Outrun, Lift and Shed and the commands Come By and That'll Do.

The rest is for the dog's other talents. Dash, Zigzag, Slalom and Clear Round are for agility and flyball dogs. Chaser and Rico are named after two Border Collies that scientists studied for the number of words they understood, and Einstein, Newton and Clever Clogs carry on the joke. Scottish, Welsh and Northumbrian given names and some Borders baking round out the list.

How to choose Border Collie names

• Say the name the way you would across a field. One clear syllable with a hard consonant, such as Cap, Jed, Tess or Mirk, is easier for a dog to pick out than a long soft name.
• Keep the name distinct from the words you work with. If 'away' is one of your flank commands, a dog called Away will only be confused, so treat the command names in this list as names for pets.
• If you have two dogs, give them names that do not rhyme or share a first sound. Moss and Floss is a harder pair to work than Moss and Nell.
• For a place name, pick one with a link to you: the river you walk beside, the hill above the farm or the town the pup came from. A long one can carry a short call name, so Lammermuir becomes Lammer and Teviotdale becomes Tev.
• A kennel or pedigree name can be longer than the call name the dog hears every day. You can pair a place with a short name, as in Yarrow Meg or Cheviot Cap.

Frequently asked questions

What are traditional Border Collie names?

The traditional working names are short and plain: Moss, Fly, Glen, Meg, Nell, Cap, Roy, Jess, Floss, Sweep, Bess, Tess, Trim and Kep. Most are a single syllable so they carry across a hill. More than a hundred names in this list are in that style.

Which famous Border Collies are in the list?

Old Hemp and Wiston Cap are the two historic working dogs. Chaser and Rico are the two dogs studied by scientists for their vocabulary, Shep was John Noakes's dog on the BBC children's program Blue Peter, and Fly and Rex are the sheepdogs in the film Babe. Every other name on the page is a general idea, not the name of a particular dog.

What are good names for an agility Border Collie?

Short, sharp names work best in the ring because you say them at a run: Dash, Blitz, Zip, Dart, Whizz and Flicker. Zigzag, Slalom, Tunnel and Clear Round are taken from the course itself.

Why are there so many place names?

The breed was developed on the farms either side of the border between Scotland and England, and its name says so. Rivers and hills from that country, such as Teviot, Yarrow, Ettrick, Cheviot and Eildon, give a name a real link to the dog's history. All of them are real places in the south of Scotland or in Northumberland.

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