Your cattery name is the first thing a buyer sees. It appears on every pedigree, every social post, every email, and every Google search. Getting it right matters — and getting it registered with TICA before someone else does matters even more.
Here's how to choose a name, build a brand around it, and do all of it from your phone without spending money on a designer.
What Makes a Great Cattery Name
The best cattery names share a few traits:
- Memorable: One or two words. Easy to say out loud. Easy to spell when someone searches for you.
- Distinctive: Not a generic word like "Royal" or "Elite" that 200 other catteries already use. Something that's yours.
- Scalable: It should still make sense if you add a second breed or expand your program in five years.
- Searchable: Avoid names that are impossible to find online because they're too common or too similar to existing businesses.
Before you fall in love with a name, search it on TICA's cattery registry, Google, Instagram, and Facebook. If it's taken anywhere that matters, keep brainstorming.
How to Register Your Cattery Name with TICA
Go to tica.org, log in to your member account, and navigate to the cattery registration section. You'll pay a one-time registration fee (currently around $35) and your name becomes exclusively yours within TICA's registry.
Your registered name becomes your prefix — it appears before every kitten name you register. "Dashing Coons Samson of Legends" is a registered kitten name. The prefix is the brand.
Choose carefully. You can change it later but it's a hassle and creates confusion in pedigrees.
Building Your Visual Brand from Your Phone
You need three things: a logo, a color palette, and a consistent font. That's it. Here's how to get all three for free or nearly free:
Logo
Use Canva (free on mobile) or Looka (paid, but fast). Describe your cattery's personality — "luxury," "dark and moody," "warm and family-friendly" — and let the AI generate options. Pick one, customize the colors, download it. Done in 20 minutes.
Alternatively, use ChatGPT to write a detailed logo brief, then take that brief to a Fiverr designer for $15-30. You'll get something custom and professional.
Color Palette
Pick two to three colors that represent your brand. For Dashing Coons: black, gold, and cream. For a different cattery it might be navy and white, or forest green and copper. Use Coolors.co on your phone to generate harmonious palettes in seconds.
Once you have your palette, use those exact colors everywhere — your website, your Instagram, your email signature, your kitten listings. Consistency is what makes a brand feel professional.
Font
Pick one heading font and one body font and use them everywhere. Google Fonts is free. For a premium cattery feel: a serif or elegant sans-serif for headings (Montserrat, Playfair Display, Cormorant Garamond), and a clean readable font for body text.
Your Brand Voice
Brand voice is how you sound in writing — your captions, your emails, your kitten descriptions. Decide on three adjectives that describe your tone and stick to them.
Dashing Coons: warm, poetic, premium. Every caption, every listing, every email sounds like those three words.
Use ChatGPT to help you find your voice. Prompt: "I run a TICA-registered Maine Coon cattery called [name]. My brand is [adjectives]. Write 3 sample Instagram captions in my brand voice." Refine until it sounds like you, then use that as your template.
Where to Apply Your Brand
- Instagram profile photo and bio
- Facebook page cover photo and about section
- Website header and color scheme
- Email signature
- Kitten listing photos (consistent backgrounds and editing style)
- Watermarks on photos (optional but professional)
The Bottom Line
Your brand is not your logo. Your brand is the feeling buyers get every time they interact with you. The logo, the colors, the font, the voice — those are just the tools that create the feeling consistently.
Spend an afternoon on this. Get it right once. Then apply it everywhere and never think about it again.