There are a lot of beautiful birds out there that we would love to own, but the thing about them is that, unless you actually take the time to study them, you most likely won’t be able to tell them apart from one another, simply because of how similar they are.
But there is one bird that you will never mistake for another, and that is none other than everybody’s favorite flightless bird: aka the penguin.
The thing that we need to mention here though is that even though the penguin is one of the most unique and popular birds you’ll ever see, there isn’t a lot of detailed information about them out there.
In fact, there is a debate that has been going on for many years now on whether there are 18 different species of penguins or if there are a lot less than that out there.
What we do know for a fact though is that most penguins are found around the Southern Hemisphere, with only a select few species living in Antarctica, such as the most popular penguin of all, the Emperor.
The Galapagos is also a very popular species of penguins, and as the name implies, they’re known to live on the Galapagos Islands.
Penguins are also known for loving both the land and the water, as they can easily escape predators and live long and prosperous lives in either environment.
Most of the world’s penguins are found in their own natural environments, but due to how popular they are with tourists, you may actually find quite a handful of them around the local zoos too.
Penguin breeding is known to take place starting from March and April and ending around one to two months later. Interestingly enough, both the male and the female penguins end up carrying their egg on top of their feet, as they both work together in order to care for it.
Now, while keeping a penguin as a pet is illegal in most places around the world, especially the US for that matter, since they are very popular zoo attractions, it’s not that surprising to hear that the personnel there ends up naming their penguin chicks themselves.
If you happen to go to the zoo pretty often and you want to think of a good name to give your favorite little flightless bird then keep on reading because for today, we decided to bring you a list of the best penguin names we could think of.
We will be separating the names in different subcategories to make the job easier for you, so for example if you have a male penguin you wouldn’t want to call it Trisha, so we’ll filter out the options so you won’t have to worry about any of that.
After we list off the names, we’ll also help answer a few questions that you may have regarding penguin naming. So, with that being said, let’s just hop right into the first category of the day, aka:
Baby Penguin Names
While we do know that penguins will not be babies all of their lives, we still can’t help but give our little tuxedo-wearing gentlemen and ladies sweet and adorable nicknames now, can’t we?
This is why we have the following loveable nicknames set for you:
- Addy – to start off our list we have a very beautiful name that befits this majestic flightless bird, since it originally meant “noble” in old English.
- Blue – this is a beautiful nickname that is sure to match your penguin’s charm.
- Camo
- Emperor – even if you don’t actually have an Emperor penguin you can still give your baby penguin this name.
- Flipper – this nickname actually comes from old English and it means “limb used to swim with” which perfectly fits any penguin since they tend to spend more time under the sea than on ground.
- Gwen
- Ice Pop – or alternatively you can refer to your baby penguin as the Ice Popsy which is short for ice popsicle.
- Icicle – this world actually means “chill ice” in old English, already making it a very cute and interesting nickname that you’re sure to love calling out every time the rascal’s hiding.
- Poppy
- Prince – this is a beautiful nickname that any animal would love to have, and what’s best about it is that while it does more so fit a male penguin than a female, it can also be changed to Princess if you like the sound of it.
- Rocky – this on the other hand is meant for the little penguin baby that is not afraid to bump into everything when its curiosity is peaked.
- Penny
- Swimmer
- Tundra
- Mac – this could be short for macaroni and cheese, which in itself will make a lot of visitors laugh.
- Frosty
- Francesca
- Nick
- Cheeky – this nickname especially works if your baby penguin tends to be a bit of a rapscallion.
Female Penguin Names
Interestingly enough, you actually can’t tell most of the time whether you are dealing with a male penguin or a female penguin. That’s because there are very few distinguishing features that separate the two from one another
Even so, you can always just check for yourself and see if you have a male or a female based on their general size, their beaks and just how good they are at fishing.
That’s because males are typically bigger than females and they also seem to be fatter, having longer beaks which help them when it comes to fishing.
At the same time, males tend to be surrounded by females because they are so good at fishing, so if you see that there is a penguin that is constantly followed around by the others, chances are that that’s a male and the ones chasing him around are females.
With that being said, once you do make the distinction between the males and the females it’s time to give them a name, which in itself can become a good and easy way to distinguish between them as they grow older.
So, if you want to make sure that you know you’re dealing with a female penguin, just use one of the following names:
- Minnie – she may not be a mouse, but she sure is adorable, which is why this nickname perfectly fits any female penguin out there.
- Rosalie
- Bianca
- Emy
- Stella
- Harley – alternatively you can also make a pun out of this name and refer to your penguin as “Harley Penquinn”, referring to the popular DC character Harley Quinn.
- Ebony
- Ice Queen
- Aurora
- Beauty – you may also call another male that they follow around all day long “Beast”, in order to make their life a literal fairy tail.
- Cassie – she technically lives in a “Cage”, so this could be a very funny in-joke for you and your other Mortal Kombat friends.
- Piper
- Alaska
- Hana
- Lucy
- Lilith – this one just has a very nice ring to it and it is also very feminine.
- Silkie
- Cindy
- Lola
- Ross
- Domino – this one perfectly considering the dual color pattern that penguins have, and it can also be a reference to your favorite pizza place or your favorite female comics character.
Male Penguin Names
There are a lot of different ways that you can employ in order to properly convey the fact that the penguin is a male. Our favorite is to just give them a very manly name, as that will instantly make you realize that you’re dealing with a male penguin.
At the same time however, you can take this opportunity to make puns out of their name, essentially making it so that people can instantly pick up on the penguin’s gender, while also laughing at the ridiculous name you came up with.
With that being said, let’s just hop right into these names, starting off with:
- Butch – there aren’t too many names that we can safely say are as manly or even close to how manly this sounds.
- Buzzcut – yet another very manly name that will instantly help people understand that they’re dealing with a male penguin.
- Black Jack – if you’re a fan of blackjack, this could very well be the perfect name for your penguin.
- Homer
- Iceland
- Milo – this one is quite amazing too if you’re a fan of the old Disney’s Atlantis, and it works quite well if your penguin also has a goofy yet loveable look on his face.
- Rocky – nothing quite like this one, it instantly gets to the point and it’s very easy to remember.
- Sherwin
- Norwal
- Pringle
- Jojo – regardless of whether you choose this because you’re a fan of the old Powerpuff Girls show or if you more so prefer the bizarre-ness of the name, this name always fits no matter what.
- Pedro
- Elvis – is the penguin a real heartbreaker that just loves to run around being followed by groupies? Then this name is more than perfect enough.
- Chumbucket
- Noel
- Dodo
- Jason – bonus points if you got the penguin around Friday the 13th
- Ice-Cap
- Cola
- Bear
- Baron – this name is perfect for the most illustrious of penguins
Famous Penguin Names
Sometimes you just want to use a name that has already been used plenty of times by now, not because you lack imagination but just because they are so perfect for everyday use.
Luckily, there have been quite a lot of famous penguins on screen over the past couple of decades now, so there’s no real shortage of famous names to pick from.
By far our favorites though have to be the following simply because of how catchy and easily recognizable they are:
- Skipper, Kowalski, Rico, Private – If you’re a fan of Madagascar any of these are no brainers, especially so if you have four penguins that all seem to be getting along with each other.
- Chilly Willy
- Mumble – Happy Feet is a classic and that’s all there is to it.
- Cody Maverick – Surf’s Up was also an amazing movie and we honestly just love this name even without that tie-in.
- Ramon, Rinaldo, Nestor, Lombardo and Raul – Happy Feet again hits us with some of the best penguin names around.
- Sparky
- Penguin
- Tip – this is a lesser-known penguin that was featured in the Little Mermaid’s sequel titled Return to the Sea.
- Eclair
- Pingu and Pinga – Quite possibly the most famous penguin name of all time and always a surefire way to bring back childhood memories to everyone that you tell your penguin’s name to.
- Tootsie the Penguin
- Pokey the Penguin
- Esmeralda
- Misha
- Feathers McGraw
- Alfred
- Captain Cook
- Professor Percival Penguin
- Greta
- Tacky
Funny Penguin Names
Sometimes you just want to make people smile with the name that you chose for your penguin.
If this sounds like something you’d want to do, then you may want to consider giving the penguin a funny nickname, such as the following:
- The Pebble
- Gap Tooth – one of the funniest nicknames you could give your penguin, this is sure to make everybody chuckle at least once.
- Happy Foot
- Madam Freezle
- Skate
- Tapdance – if the penguin you got actually loves to waddle around from side to side at all times, then you may want to consider this nickname.
- Smurfette – while it is mostly a female name, it can still be used ironically for your penguin regardless of their gender.
- Dapper Dan
- Pacman
- Mo
- Oreo
- Fisher – this one can be all the funnier if your penguin is really not that good at fishing or fending off for himself.
- Fidget Waddler
- Snowflake – this one is especially funny if your penguin tends to follow you around everywhere you go and scream at you.
- Squeaks
- Torpedo – if your penguin is especially fast under the sea this may fit them perfectly.
- Pudgy – if your penguin is quite robust this name will make everybody laugh for sure.
- Tiny – this one can be used for both small penguins or it can be used ironically for the largest penguin you have in the enclosure.
- Marbles
- Ping Pong
- Mime
- Screamer
- Opera Singer – if your penguin is especially vocal, this nickname will be more than perfect enough for them.
Random Penguin Names
Sometimes you don’t want to think all that much about your penguin’s name, and instead you just want to give them the name that you feel is the most fitting for them. In these cases, all you need to do is you need to go for one of the following names:
- Abe
- Bam-Bam
- Bella
- Bingo
- Banjo
- Buddy
- Cleo
- Coco
- Daisy
- Fruit Loop
- Hector
- Humphrey
- Hunter
- Jet
- Mia
- Popcorn
- Pretzel
- Scooby or Scrappy Doo
- Simba
- Thor
- Zorro
- Mike Tyson
- Tootsie
How to Know if You’ve Got the Perfect Penguin Name
There isn’t any surefire way to tell if you’ve made the right choice, all that you need to do is you need to make sure that it fits the following requirements:
- You need to feel like the name perfectly fits your penguin. A name such as “Willy Wonka” may be good for everybody else, but if you don’t like it then you shouldn’t force yourself to like it.
- The name needs to be easy to remember and something that you believe you won’t need to think twice about before you call out for your penguin, which is why most of the time we believe that a shorter or more memorable name is better fitting.
- Last but not least, the name needs to be something that you can see yourself using for many years to come, since penguins do live for quite some time, and forgetting the nickname you gave them is going to create a ripple in your relationship.
But how can you find the perfect name for your penguin? Well, the first method is to just look up online different names that you can choose from. That way you’ll stumble across articles such as this one that will give you a pretty wide range of names for you to look through.
Besides this though you can also just use online name generators to get a random selection of names. While not all of them will fit a penguin, you could still get lucky and find the perfect one with just a few clicks.
On top of that you can also ask your friends and family members for help. After all, just because you work there that doesn’t mean that you can’t get inspiration from those around you.
You can call onto all of your friends and get them to tell you what they would think are the best names for your penguin. Remember to write down your favorites before the meeting is over though because you can easily forget them.
After you do end up choosing a name though, we recommend that you display it by purchasing a custom name plaque or a sign. You can also make your own but if you don’t want to you can always just purchase one and personalize it with your penguin’s new name.
Last but not least, have fun with this whole process. Many people take this too seriously as they spend so much time trying to find the absolute perfect nickname for their penguin.
While it is important to find a good name, we do also believe that as long as you’re happy with it and the penguin’s happy, that’s all that matters.
Conclusion
So, there you have it, over a hundred different names you could choose for your favorite penguin. Do keep in mind however that penguins are quite intelligent, as they will easily pick up on the name you gave them, and they’ll start associating it with themselves.
So, while you can technically change their name later on down the line, they will most likely never forget their first name either.
