In the spirit of St. Patrick’s Day and the 25th anniversary of our parent company Germinder + Associates, Inc., we’re revisiting this fun post from a pet insurance company. Germinder + Associates has represented several pet insurance companies and the North American Pet Insurance Association (NAPHIA) over the years. In 2015 Nationwide, (formerly Veterinary Pet Insurance), the nation’s first and largest provider of pet health insurance, analyzed its database of more than 525,000 insured pets to find the five most common Irish dog breeds, Irish beer-inspired pet names, and St. Patrick’s Day monikers. Below are the results which we think are still fun to take a look back at (total number of 2015 pets enrolled/sharing name in parenthesis):
Irish Setter
Irish Dog Breeds
1. Wheaten terrier (1,048)
2. Irish setter (366)
3. Irish wolfhound (257)
4. Irish terrier (152)
5. Irish water spaniel (25)
St. Patrick’s Day-Inspired Pet Names
1. Lucky (1,571)
2. Seamus (228)
3. Clover (134)
4. Patrick (98)
5. Shamrock (52)
Irish Beer-Inspired Pet Names
1. Murphy (1,443)
2. Guinness (96)
3. Harp (4)
4. Smithwick (3)
5. O’Hara (2)
The Irish wolfhound didn’t stray far from its Emerald Isle roots with the most common name amongst the breed being the traditional Irish surname, “Finnegan.” Other popular Irish-themed monikers included 123 companions named “Jameson,” a world-famous Irish whiskey, and 118 pets named “Dublin,” the capital and largest city of Ireland.
If you are in New York, find out about these great Irish dog breeds at the AKC Dog Museum, the story below: