Meaning and background
The story behind Pluto
Pluto has two well-documented associations. In Roman mythology, Pluto is the god of the underworld; in astronomy, it is the name selected for the distant dwarf planet discovered in 1930. NASA explains that schoolgirl Venetia Burney proposed the planetary name after the Roman deity. These are distinct but historically connected references. The spelling alone does not tell us whether a dog owner had mythology, the sky or fiction in mind.
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Everyday moments“Pluto, come here!”
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About Pluto
Recorded as a dog’s name
Pluto appears in 49 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.
Pronunciation and rhythm
/plutoʊ/
US English sound sequence, converted from the CMU dictionary. Stress marks are shown separately.
Stress on the first syllable in the recorded US readings.
View dictionary notation
/plutoʊ/ · primary stress on syllable 1P L UW1 T OW0
These are US dictionary readings. Personal, regional and other language pronunciations may differ.
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Sources and research notes (2)
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.
- Carnegie Mellon University / CMU Sphinx maintainers CMU US English Pronouncing Dictionary — US English dictionary readings; not owner-specific or exhaustive multilingual pronunciation
References support the individual facts shown. A source link does not mean the entire profile has been verified.