First Tortoises?

[Dimitri'sMummy]

Hi! So I'm pretty new to the forums and I just wanted to put my first general tortoise discussion out there! How did you get your first tort/turtle and how did you come up with their name(s)?

It really interests me hearing about other people who are as enthusiastic about their torts/turtles... In the area that I live in tortoises really aren't common! It's just nice to have a group of like-minded people who love their tortoises lol😄

I distinctly remember picking Dimitri from the store! He was just munching on some lettuce and just watching me, and his name; I get so many weird looks when I tell people his name, he's called Dimitri mostly because he's a Russian tortoise and partly because I've just always liked that name:L I think he suits it, what do you guys think?

 

[DesertGrandma]

I think he is cute and I like his name too

 

[ErikaO]

Thats a great name! We let one of our sonsname his first Russian tortoise. My son was only 7 years old at the time so we expected a rather silly child name to come from him. We told him to give it a day or two to see if the tortoise's personality would help in choosing a name. Sure enough, two days later, my son tells us, "i've got it! Vladamir Flash Rasputin! And we can call him Flash for short!" Silly kids.......

 

[Baoh]

Found my first as a baby in the nest at the entrance of a chicken coop, saving it from befalling a similar fate to its clutchmates, who were all pecked apart. I was six at the time and dug into the nest with my hands and found the little one. I showed it to an older man who lived in the area as a goatherder. He wanted to know what we called it in English, as opposed to his native tongue (hyello-nah is how the pronunciation goes), so I figured I would go with "turtle" for easier pronunciation. He said "too-too", so I decided that would become the animal's name. My first tortoise was a Hermann's, by the way. I have found, owned, and rescued a great many since that time, but that was my start in tortoises. I had already owned other chelonians in the US.

 

[wellington]

Hello and WELCOME . Just a thought. If you put the question of "how did you get your first tortoise" or "how did you name your tortoise" in the TFO search bar at the top right, you will find many threads that were already done on the same questions. You might find some good stories there.

 

[Yvonne G]

Years ago, in the '50's, we had several desert tortoises that we found one at a time just wandering around the streets of our neighborhood. At that time, I didn't know there were other species of tortoise besides our California desert tortoise, and just assumed they were all "tortoises." However, now, looking back at it, I realize that one of them was probably a chaco tortoise. It was quite a bit more yellow than the others. Then we moved to a house in the country and I put up T-posts and chicken wire and lost all the tortoises.

Fast forward to the '70's, my son came home from the service and set up housekeeping in his own home. He rescued box turtles from pet shops that weren't taking proper care of them, swollen eyes, resp. infections, etc. Someone at work gave him a full grown female desert tortoise that his dad had run over with the disc while discing his vinyard. After a couple years, my son bought a Rottweiler pup. He couldn't make the pup leave the turtles alone, so he asked me if I would take them. Several 3-toed box turtles and the female desert tortoise.

Well, now I was older and wiser, and realized I needed to learn about these new animals I had taken in. There was no internet at that time, but I joined several turtle clubs from across the U.S.A. mainly the National Turtle & Tortoise Society, which was based in Arizona. They had a nice newsletter and I learned quite a bit about caring for my new tortoise.

I still have that desert tortoise.