In my opinion, it's just as much fun to come up with names for your future pets as it is children. I may or may not be a crazy dog and cat lady, though. Either way, however, I'm apparently not alone. Interestingly, millennials are reportedly more interested in having pets than children, at least for now. So since dogs seem to be taking the place of babies, it's no surprise that a few traditionally human baby names were stolen by dogs in 2018.

Why are so many young adults using up names for potential offspring on their fur babies? Perhaps because millennials are too busy busting their butts trying to make a career and pay off their crippling student loan debt to want human babies at the moment, suggested the consumer research website MillennialMarketing.com. Maybe that's why millennials name gravitate towards human-like names for dogs, instead of Fido or Fluffy? Or it could be that they're just more sophisticated pet owners and treat their dogs like the children they are — the way they should absolutely be treated.

I worked in a holistic pet store in my neighborhood for three years in addition to freelance writing. It was one of the best jobs I've ever had. Pet dogs all day? Check. Talk about animals all day? Check. Make sure everyone's pets were getting optimal nutrition and a great, healthy diet? Check, check. One thing I noticed as a trend (thankfully) was that people were genuinely interested in providing the best food and nutrition for their dogs and cats, and most of these people who wanted to do so happened to be millennials. And all of their dogs had human names to boot. These customers understood and agreed that paying more up front for quality food means paying less on vet bills in the long run. And since our pets are like our children, they deserve the best of the best anyway, right?

The dog names that seem to have been stolen outright from the USA Today "Most Popular Baby Names List for 2018" prove that fur-children are in (and human-children are out) for some people. Many of our customers at the store chose these names for their pooches. There are even puppy reveal parties now (instead of gender reveal parties), if dogs with human names aren't proof enough for you. So I'm not totally out in left field here, right? Pets are people, too, y'all.