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By Lillith Avalon

Having a new cria is a very exciting event. Naming your new little alpaca can be a lot of fun. Each alpaca has their own unique look and personality which can contribute to their name. Breeders sometimes choose a theme for their alpaca names, like naming them after rock’n’roll stars or movie characters, or naming according to a theme around the ranch’s name.

Alpaca names often incorporate some part of their dam or sire’s name or both. Name incorporation is particularly done if the dam or sire has a highly recognizable name that has been marketed actively as a show winning or high quality alpaca.

If you aren’t going to register your alpaca, then you can just call them whatever you want… every alpaca in your barn could be named Lucy or Ethel if you like. But most serious alpaca breeders register their alpacas with The Alpaca Registry (ARI).  Typically a registered alpaca is worth more than an unregistered one. Both parents of a registered alpaca have to also be registered. Only registered alpacas can participate in alpaca shows.

Registration is a process by which you name your alpaca, register the alpaca to yourself or your ranch, identify the alpaca’s color, gender, birthday, sire and dam, and submit a DNA test blood sample that allows ARI to verify the alpaca’s lineage.  For each alpaca you register, you receive a lovely certificate with the alpaca’s name and a unique identifying number which identifies the alpaca to the registry.  When an alpaca is sold, their registration is typically transferred and updated in the ARI records.

Registered Alpaca Names

In order to register an alpaca, you have to give the animal a unique name that does not already appear anywhere else in the registry.  Since there are over 150,000 registered alpacas, coming up with a unique alpaca name can be something of a trick!

Unique alpaca names for the registry have to follow these guidelines:

• The alpaca’s name can start with a letter or number and must be unique (that it each name must differ by at least one letter from all other alpaca names in the registry)
• The maximum length for a registered alpaca name is 35 characters including punctuation and spaces.
• Special characters and symbols can not be used in a registered alpaca name.
• The alpaca’s name can not be misleading or offensive.
• Breeder Identifiers [JUMP TAG TO PARAGRAPH BELOW]
• The alpaca’s name can contain your registered breeder identifier if you owned the dam at the time of breeding.
• The alpaca’s name can contain the identifier of the breeder who owned the dam at the time of breeding with that breeder’s permission.
• Otherwise the alpaca’s name can not contain another breeder’s registered identifier.

Changing Alpaca Names

An alpaca’s name can only be changed with ARI if that alpaca has no registered offspring. As of the date this article was written, a name change with ARI costs $100.

The difficulty with changing an existing alpaca name with registered offspring is that their name will already appear on the offspring’s registration certificates as dam or sire and could already be part of other ranch’s breeding records and marketing efforts.

Breeder Identifiers in Alpaca Names

Ranches work hard selecting dams and sires for their breeding programs so they often find it desirable to ‘brand’ alpacas that come from particular breeding programs.  Breeder identifiers are usually based on the ranch’s name, they must be unique, not too similar to another breeder’s registered identifier, and are registered with ARI (for $100). Your breeder identifier can be added to your alpaca names.

Once an owner reserves a breeder identifier with ARI, other alpaca owners may not use that breeder identifier at the beginning or end of a registered alpaca’s name.

A reserved breeder identifier must include at least one letter and be at least two characters long (not including spaces), but no longer than 17 characters (including spaces). Only letters and numbers are allowed in breeder identifiers. Breeder identifiers are used in alpaca names in the following four ways:

• [Breeder ID] Alpaca Name
• Alpaca Name of [Breeder ID]
• [Breeder ID]’s Alpaca Name
• Alpaca Name [Breeder ID]

Great Alpaca Names?

Pick a theme and do some Alpaca naming research…

Create a multi-part name - this helps a great deal with uniqueness

Animals or Birds

Animated cartoon characters

Astronomy (planets, galaxies, constellations)

Authors

Biblical characters

Classical Composers

Cliché phrases

Delicious Foods (cream, cake, sugar)

Fabrics (velvet, lace, satin)

Fleece descriptors (soft, warm, silky)

Geographical features

Great Painters

Historically famous people:
   Generals
   Inventors
   Kings and Queens
   Philanthropists

Jewels and Gemstones

Lines from poetry

Movie Actors or Movie Titles

Musical words or instruments

Mythological characters or animals

Plants, Flowers and Trees

Include the name of or an honorary reference to the sire or dam or both in the cria’s name.

Use the color of the animal to inspire part of the name.

Reference the season, month, or holiday of the cria’s birth.

Grab a regular baby name book for inspiration.

Look at names of race horses… that industry has been very creative in naming animals.

Most of all have fun in finding a new name for you new alpaca!