Naming your new son Toby when your recently deceased cat was called Toby

A woman on Reddit asked for advice about naming her son who is yet to be born 'Toby' when her recently deceased elderly cat was named Toby. She loves the name but doesn't want to upset members of the family as they might dislike the association between her cat's name and the proposed name of her son. She is in a quandary over it.

Toby a good name for a cat. Image: MikeB

One responder to her request for advice found the solution I believe. Neit_1146 suggested that she name her son the long version of Toby which is Tobias.

The Baby Centre website says this about the name Toby:

A shortened form of Tobias, from Tobiyah, meaning "God is good" from the Greek towb, meaning "good" and yahweh, the Hebrew name of "God". Pronounced: toh bee. Actor Tobey Maguire is famed for his title role in the "Spiderman" films.

She might adopt the longer version of the shortened version! This would be Tobey as in the actor who played Spiderman.

That should scotch any potential objections from other family members, I hope.

RELATED: Infographic on medieval cat names.

Here are some strange Medieval domestic cat names if you are interested. Completely different. I wonder what we can infer from the difference?