Naming Pet Chickens

Posted by Shelby DeVore on October 7th, 2019

Shelby DeVore is a livestock expert with experience teaching high school agriculture and multiple poultry science teams. Shelby has over 20 years of experience raising poultry for show, meat and eggs. She lives on a farm in west Tennessee with her husband and two children along with too many chickens to count. You can catch up with her on her homesteading blog, Farminence.

Do you have backyard chickens? Not sure what to name your chickens?

Naming chickens can seem hard, but with a little thought, you can come up with some excellent names for your backyard chickens.

It's a good idea to hold off on naming your chickens until they are old enough to really show their personality.  Young chicks don't have much of a personality and are really just concerned about eating and sleeping.

Older chickens will have unique personalities that may help you find the ideal name for them.  For example, I have two hens that are the definition of mother hens.  They are constantly trying to sit on eggs and hatch them.  I have another then that is super friendly and follows us in the yard.  I'm pretty sure that she thinks she is a dog, not a chicken! 

Waiting on the chicken's personality to shine through is a great way to make sure that your chicken's names fit them to the T.

Names for Colors and Feathers

One of the best ways to name chickens is to use their colors and feathers for inspiration.  There are a ton of really cool names out there that can highlight a chicken's features.

This is a really good way to name chickens if you have a flock that has mixed breeds.  It gets a little harder to determine who is who when you have breeds that produce chickens that all look alike (i.e. Barred Rocks, Rhode Island Reds, etc.) 

Here are some cool names based on colors:

Red Chickens

Scarlet, Cinammon, Carmen, Terra

White Chickens

Snowflake, Sugar, Ghost, Opal

Buff Chickens

Caramel, Sunny, Buttercup, Honey

Black Chickens

Jet, Midnight, Blackberry, Poppy

Grey Chickens

Lavender, Ash, Bullet, Smokey

You can also find neat names for spotted chickens or chickens that are a combination of different colors.

Character Names

One of my favorite ways to find good names for chickens is to look at names that have already been used in movies and TV shows.  Some of these characters have huge personalities and you can find a character with the same personality as your chicken to make it even more fun.

Here are some really good character names for chickens:

• Heihei
• Trigger
• Gidget
• Iago
• Little Red
• Minnie
• Snow White
• Big Bird

Old Fashioned Names

I love the idea of using old fashioned names to name farm animals.  It seems really fitting!  Here are some of my favorite old fashioned names that you can use with your hens in your backyard flock:

1. Helga
2. Clementine
3. Henrietta
4. Ethel
5. Georgette
6. Mamie

Looking for more chicken names?

If you're still looking for more chicken names, check out this article with over 400 names for chickens!  They're broken down into categories like names for colors and feathers, old-fashioned names, chicken pun names, rooster names, and good chicken names.