The Hamster Diaries 3

Naming hamsters is an important business, not as important as naming a child, but way more important than naming a car or a cactus (I named my cactus in the shop but had forgotten the name by the time I got it home, that is how unimportant naming a cactus is). The names I give my hamsters will not only come to be reflected - as all names are - in their personalities, but will demonstrate how I feel about them; still ill at ease with buying hamsters, this second point matters a lot.

Cutesy names such as Honey and Badger, or Hammy and Fluffy are bang out; not only would they be embarrassing to admit to in public but they suggest too childish an outlook, that hamsters are just fluffy toys to be loved and entertained by. Similarly jokey pop culture names such as Jet Li and Jacky Chan, or Ant and Dec are entirely unsuitable; they would imply that I did not take the hamsters seriously, that I saw them as novelty items, fashion accessories.

They are Russian hamsters so initially I consider Russian names, perhaps Trotsky and Stalin, or Tchaikovsky and Shotakovich, or Tolstoy and Pushkin; but my knowledge of Russian politics is poor enough that I would feel a fraud - the names also implying some degree of homage, my knowledge of classical music sketchy at best, and my knowledge of Russian literature zero. Housemate #2 suggests calling one Boris and although Boris is a very good name I want the name I give my hamsters to mean something.

The first inkling of a notion to get hamsters was born in the writing of a novel last year, a silly book in which two hamsters, Sniffles and Snuffles, are stolen. For a while I consider honouring this fact by calling my hamsters Sniffles and Snuffles, but - ultimately - too cutesy again.

I turn to literature. I will name the hamsters from books I love. The book I love most in all the world is Moby Dick so I toy with Ahab and Ishmael, Queequeg and Tashtego, Starbuck and Stub, but none seem to fit. The fact that one hamster is white and the other is not lends itself marvellously to Ahab and Moby Dick, but I do not want a pair of names that imply hierarchy - I want my hamsters to be equal. This also rules out Phileas Fogg and Passepartout, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, and Allan Quatermain and Umslopogaas.

I lean heavily towards Chingachook and Uncas from Last Of The Mohicans but the girlfriend vetoes it on the grounds that she demands a name she can spell (she also vetoes several of the names in the previous paragraph). The girlfriend is very good at spelling and I am not, as a wannabe writer this is not the sort of resource I can afford to treat lightly, so her veto is granted. She likes Musketeer names: D'Artagnan, Porthos, Athos, and Aramis. I do not like the idea of naming two hamsters after three musketeers but cannot think of anything better,

When we get home the housemate, on seeing that one of the hamsters is blonde, immediately reiterates his demand that I call it Boris. "And the other one can be Ken," he says.

Even though this breaks rule two I am annoyed I didn't think of it. "You don't get to name the hamsters," I tell him in no uncertain terms.

In the cage, watched in rapt delight by me and the girlfriend, the hamsters immediately start to display their individual personalities. The blonde one runs about everywhere, frantically exploring and then later gathering the bedding into the corner and arranging a nest. The darker one simply sits in the food bowl and eats. The girlfriend announces that they are obviously an Aramis (gallant, elegant) and a Porthos (greedy, lazy), and despite the fact that she has not even read the book and I have, I am forced to admit she is right and, without any better ideas, and in the need for names, I christen two hamsters after three musketeers. Porthos and Aramis.