How David Got His Name

David Jeffrey, my Hyacinth Macaw got his middle name in an odd way. It all began because the lady who hand-fed David chose, what she considered to be, very sweet boy names for the two Hyacinth babies she was raising. It's easy to understand her desire because handfed Hyacinths are such incredibly sweet baby birds.

When I bought David I kept his name because I've always preferred naming most of my pets with human names. This is especially true for my parrots. Parrots have such human characteristics it seems almost insulting to give them some "cutsey" pet-type name. But that's just my personal feeling, of course. There are many parrots in the world with great names that aren't normally used for people.

David has a brother and they were raised together until being separated to go to their new homes. When I arrived to pick up David I discovered a house full of people there to celebrate David going to his new home. One of the guests was confused over which bird was David and which one was Jeffrey. So everytime she spoke to one of the Hyacinths' she would call him David-Jeffrey.

Then we discovered that Jeffrey's new "parents" wanted to change his name to something different. So the name Jeffrey was abandoned. That made the lady who raised Jeffrey kind of sad because she thought the name was so appropriate. Since the party-goer had used the name David-Jeffrey it stuck for me. So we officially added Jeffrey as David's middle name.

I have an African Grey with a middle name, too. But that's another story.