What’s in a name? After recently reading about the release of Richie McKiwi, I decided to investigate what other cool kiwi names are out there, and how they came about.

I also came across a newborn at the West Coast Wildlife Centre. Any ideas for names? Submit your suggestions by commenting below.

As far as kiwi that already have names go, here are some (in no particular order) that stood out:

1. Gingernut – Named because there were orange patches on its head and back (West Coast Wildlife Centre).

Gingernut and his orange patches

3. Koanga – Meaning ‘spring’, named because it was the first chick hatched for the season (West Coast Wildlife Centre).

4. Bella – Meaning ‘beautiful’, named by an Italian tourist (West Coast Wildlife Centre).

5. Shadow – Because the kiwi had interesting shadows inside its egg during incubation (West Coast Wildlife Centre).

The reason Shadow is called Shadow

6. Sonic the hedgehog – Given to a feisty wild chick who was super-active (West Coast Wildlife Centre).

7. Hupai – Around the hatching of the 1000th Operation Nest Egg chick in 2007, Save the Kiwi Trust had a contest to select a name for the chick. More than 1000 entries were submitted. The name ‘Hupai’ which means ‘to overcome’ was chosen (Waimarino Forest).

8. Patch – Named after John Cumberpatch, who had just retired from DOC. Coincidentally, the egg had a tiny hole in its shell that had to be ‘patched’ up, and it hatched with a massive patch of white feathers on its head! (West Coast Wildlife Centre).

9. Bacon – Mainland Foods (Kiwi Bacon) were a sponsor of the Save the Kiwi Trust for a short term, to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Kiwi Bacon. To launch the sponsorship, a kiwi was released in Whangarei, with the somewhat dubious name ‘Bacon’ (Whangarei Sanctuary).

Richter cuddling up to another kiwi (Howie), on Valentines Day no less

10. Richter – Named after the Christchurch earthquakes (Richter scale) (West Coast Wildlife Centre).

11. Kimposter – A male who was found incubating another male’s (Kim’s) eggs (Whangarei Kiwi Sanctuary).

12. Liz Taylor – Named after being caught with eight different males (Whangarei Kiwi Sanctuary).

13. Crikey – Named in memory of Steve Irwin (Whangarei Kiwi Sanctuary).

14. Fat Freddy – Named after the New Zealand band—and his fat puku (Whangarei Kiw Sanctuary).

15. Scratch – Named after the blood he left on kiwi ranger Peter Graham’s arm when he was first caught (Whangarei Kiwi Sanctuary).

DOC's Paul Cornille with Richie McKiwi

16. Richie McKiwi – Named by children from Purua School to celebrate the Rugby World Cup (Whangarei Kiwi Sanctuary).

17. Nack and Paddywack – Offspring of Nick (Whangarei Sanctuary).

18. Doug and Lass – Doug was caught in a small stand of Douglas fir trees. He had to be chased around the tree trunks, before being caught. Lass is Doug’s mate. She was caught in the same small stand of Douglas fir trees (same place, same night). They had a chick called Fir… (Tongariro Forest Kiwi Sanctuary).

 19. Sparkler – Hatched on Guy Fawkes day (Tongariro Forest Kiwi Sanctuary).

 20. Peter Pan – Named because he ‘flew through the air’ over a log while being chased (Wendy is his mate) (Tongariro Forest Kiwi Sanctuary).

What’s your favourite kiwi name? Vote here:

Name ideas for the newborn

What should my name be?

A kiwi chick at the West Coast Wildlife Centre hatched yesterday—what are your name ideas?

Bevan Cameron, one of the Haast Biodiversity Asset Rangers, delivered the Haast tokoeka kiwi egg to the West Coast Wildlife Centre on September 28. The Haast DOC rangers actually went in expecting to rescue a chick which was about a week old, but were surprised to pull out an egg instead!

The parents of the egg are called Lightning and Thunder. Yesterday morning the wee chick inside the egg had made the first cracks to the egg overnight—the rangers were lucky enough to be watching when the chick made a third hole with his/her bill! This chick is really vocal and his/her egg was always wobbling around on the bench as the chick was busy inside trying to break out of the egg! It made its grand entry into the world at 1.30pm yesterday!

Leave a comment with your name ideas!