What’s in a (Sheep) Name?

Naming practices for Icelandic sheep

 

By Nancy Chase

 

Why name them?

Let’s face it, sheep are not particularly name-oriented. 

 

My flock will come running from all corners of the farm if I go out near feeding time and yell, “Sheep!”  But they’ll also respond if I’m in the backyard calling, “Kitty, kitty, kitty,” or when I whistle the horses in from pasture.  They understand the concept of calling, they just don’t care about specific words.

 

So, if you name your sheep, you’re doing it for your benefit, not theirs.

 

I name all of my sheep because it feels more personal and because ear tag numbers don’t stick in my head the way names do. 

 

I can easily remember that Trillium is the daughter of Sebastian, who is the son of Paisley and Nicholai, and I could describe each of them in detail, off the top of my head.  But if you called me up and asked me to tell you about the sheep with tag number 316P, I couldn’t do it without looking at a chart.

 

The sheep don’t care what I call them, but calling them something makes my life easier.

 

Choosing a name

You can name your sheep anything you like.  Lots of people try to choose names that are somehow descriptive of the sheep’s appearance.  Others like to pick Icelandic names in honor of the sheep’s heritage.  Anything that feels right to you is okay.

 

People often ask me about my naming practices when they notice that many of my sheep’s names start with the same letter.  That’s just a little added thing I do to help make the name mean something to me.

 

Each registered Icelandic sheep gets its ears tattooed with a set of letters that indicate its flock of origin, a number assigned to that particular sheep, and a letter that represents the year it was born (more about this below).

 

Each year I give my lambs names that start with the letter assigned to that year.  That way, as the years go by, I have an easy way to remember how old each sheep is without having to look it up. 

 

Also, when dealing with files or records that tend to get automatically alphabetized in the computer, this naming practice means that my sheep lists get conveniently grouped by birth year.

 

 

Sources for names:

Naming dozens of lambs each spring with names that all start with the same letter can be challenging.  I like to turn it into something fun I can think about while waiting for those lambs to be born.

 

So I’ve developed a list of sources to help me out.  Even if you don’t care what letter your sheep names start with, you might find inspiration in these places:

 

· Baby name books and websites

· Dictionary & Thesaurus

· Atlas (for lists of place names)

· Biography and history books (for lists of famous people and events)

· Mythology books (for lists of legendary heroes, gods, and goddesses)

· Gardening books and catalogs (for lists of flowers, herbs, and trees)

· Spice catalogs (for lists of spices)

 

Registered names

Regardless of what names you choose to call them at home, each registered Icelandic sheep is given an official name, unique to that sheep.  These names are assigned by the breeder (according to certain guidelines) and recorded by the registry organization, the Canadian Livestock Records Corp.

 

If you’ve seen these names listed on breeder websites, or if you’ve browsed the registry database, you may have thought they looked like gibberish.  But once you know what you’re looking for, they are actually packed with information.  Take this name, for example:

 

INGL RAM M5SH 002S -[CAN]607130-H

 

The first group of letters is my farm’s flock code.  “INGL” stands for Ingleside Farm.  Each farm has its own flock code, and all lambs bred by that farm have that code in their names.

 

The next three letters are either RAM or EWE, to indicate the sheep’s sex.

 

Then comes the color code.  “M” means the sheep’s base color is moorit, “B” means it’s black.  If the sheep is white, the code is “0”.

Next is the pattern code:

If the sheep expresses more than one pattern, include both numbers.  For instance, the code for a badger-mouflon would be “34”

 

If the next digit after the pattern code is the letter “S” that means that the sheep is spotted.  If there’s no “S” the sheep is not spotted.

 

The final letter in this sequence tells about the sheep’s horns.  “H” means the sheep is horned.  “P” means it’s polled.  “C” means it has scurs (small, not-fully-formed horns, usually an indication that the sheep has both horned and polled bloodlines in its immediate ancestry).

The next group of digits consists of a number assigned by the breeder to that individual sheep (Some breeders start over again at “1” each year, others continue numbering consecutively for as long as they keep breeding), followed by a letter that represents the sheep’s birth year.

 

The year letters are assigned by the registry.  The year letters are:

(The letters I, O, Q and V aren’t used, because if you were reading them on a faded tattoo in a sheep’s ear, these letters could easily be confused for another letter or digit.  Avoiding these few letters eliminates the potential mix up.)

 

The last group of digits is the registration number assigned by the registry.  If the number has an “H” at the end, it means the sheep was listed as being “Horned, without polled ancestry.”

 

Now that you understand the basics, I’ll warn you that there are some variations.  Not all breeders use all the codes or put them in exactly the same order. 

 

If the sheep is the product of an artificial insemination breeding using semen imported from Iceland, some breeders will insert the code “AI” into the name somewhere. 

 

And every once in a great while, if a lamb’s color is incorrectly identified and the lamb is registered before its true color becomes obvious, its color code might be incorrect.

 

But in general these codes provide a wealth of information for breeders and potential buyers alike.  You can find out more about the color coding practices here.

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