Selkirk Rex Cat Names, Names For Selkirk Rex Kittens, Page 11

The Selkirk Rex is the only cat breed named after a person, and the only rex breed with a dominant curl gene. Both facts come from the same 1987 origin story. A feral blue tortoiseshell-and-white shelter cat in Montana produced a litter that included one kitten with curly whiskers and a wavy coat. Persian breeder Jeri Newman adopted the kitten and named her Miss DePesto of NoFace — TICA's breed page is direct on the reason: 'because she was always pestering for attention.'

Newman bred Miss DePesto to a black Persian. The litter, born 4 July 1988, contained three curly kittens out of six — proving the rex gene was dominant rather than recessive. Cornish Rex and Devon Rex are both built on recessive rex genes; the Selkirk is the only rex breed where one parent carrying the gene is enough. It is also the only rex breed with all three coat layers in curly form — Cornish Rex has no guard hairs at all. Newman named the breed after her stepfather's family name, Selkirk, making this the rare cat breed not named for a country, a city, or a physical feature.

Two coat varieties exist. The shorthair Selkirk Rex looks, in TICA's phrasing, like a teddy bear. The longhair looks like a woolly sheep. Both have heavy boning, rounded heads close to the British Shorthair shape, and curly whiskers that tend to break off naturally. TICA granted Championship in February 1994; CFA followed in 2000; GCCF in June 2009. UK breeders must DNA-test for Polycystic Kidney Disease before registration — a legacy of the Persian foundation crosses.

Naming directions, then. Miss DePesto, DePesto, Pesto (founding-cat wink, all three work as short names). Lamb, Wooly, Curly, Ringlet, Marcel (the coat). Teddy, Bear, Cuddles, Plush (the silhouette). Tweed, Borders, Walter (the Scottish Borders Selkirk-family ancestry). All five threads are honest — none of them lean on the curls for cliché.