"squishy"

Remember that scene in Finding Nemo? "I shall call him Squishy and he shall be mine and he shall be my squishy." I thought that was hysterical.

Fish are a tough pet to name. As a child I had a goldfish named Arthur; I don't remember what I was thinking, except that he was a gold fish, and I recall I'd just read the Malory tales of Arthur. I certainly didn't put that much thought into his surroundings. One scrap of duckweed and that was that, in his clear bowl, on top of the fridge. Anything more socially intricate in its needs than a fish would have gone nuts. When we moved, I gave him to the next doorneighbor, who placed him in an outdoor pond. There he grew to the size of a small football, she said.

Happily, there are better fishparents out there. Otherwise who in Heaven's name would have compiled these exhaustive lists of female and male pet fish names?