Meaning and background
The story behind Laika
Laika is famous as the Soviet dog sent into orbit aboard Sputnik 2 on 3 November 1957. NASA identifies the Russian name as referring to a husky or a “barker”; the dog had earlier been known as Kudryavka. That makes Laika a rare dog name with a directly documented canine namesake and a substantial, sometimes sombre, space-history association.
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About Laika
Recorded as a dog’s name
Laika appears in 29 dog licence records in the 2026 New York City dataset.
How to read this count
These records cover New York City and may count the same dog in more than one licence period. They are not a national popularity ranking.
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Sources and research notes (1)
Gender association: NYC licence-period records. Any dog can use this name.
- New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene NYC Dog Licensing Dataset — extract_year 2026 — Dog licence periods, not unique dogs; NYC only. No owner-level fields retrieved.
References support the individual facts shown. A source link does not mean the entire profile has been verified.