Naming the "dimit lij"

My family can attest to the fact that I love to name things…especially pets. In fact, I have my next 10 pet names already lined up. I'll admit that I even have a list of my favorite boy and girl names. At the rate I'm going, however, that is probably a waste of time.

Anyways....my host family has a cat (dimet) and a kitten (dimet lij), neither of which have names. In my very broken Amharic I managed to ask if I could perhaps name them and the answer was "yes". Permission was granted several days ago, but up until last night I was struggling to come up with a suitable moniker for either the cat or kitten. Last night, I had an epiphany. The kitten should be called "George". It just seems to fit especially since it is a very American sounding name and every time I see the little guy he's into trouble and reminds me of "Curious George". Exited that I had finally reached a decision, I shared the kitten's new name with my mom and brother. My Mom was so thrilled with my choice. Her response, "George? Georgie Bush?!?" Considering that I don't have the Amharic vocabulary to explain that that really wasn't my line of thinking, I've just decided to run with it. The momma cat's name: BARBARA.