La, La, La, La Lola

Yes, I am the type of mother who tells stories on my kids they wish I wouldn't.

When my son was seven years old, we got our new puppy – and he named her “Lola” after a girl in his first-grade class. Awww.

(He swears that this girl “wasn’t a girlfriend, but a friend who just happened to be a girl,” and he may be telling the truth. If Puppy Lola had been a boy, his name would have been “Max,” after my son’s other good friend in first grade.)

“Lola” is actually quite a common name for dogs. For the most part, it fits what people look for in a dog name. It’s short and it’s cute and it even ends in a vowel.

But what I find most interesting is how people respond to my dog’s name.

When people hear that her name is “Lola,” they will almost always start singing one of three songs:

“Lola,” by the Kinks;

“Copacabana” by Barry Manilow, which starts off, “Her name was Lola; she was a showgirl, with yellow feathers in her hair and a dress cut down to there;”

or

“Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets,” from the musical Damn Yankees. The people who choose this one tend to be older, which makes sense since the musical was written in 1955.

Whichever one the person chooses really does tell you something about them, I think.

 Got a song stuck in your head now?