Having been a Swiftie for many years at this point, I know I'm not alone in feeling like a walking database when a word or name pops up in the same sentence as "Taylor Swift" and my brain automatically starts making connections, whether they're relevant to anything or not. When the topic of the name of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's adorable dog began to circulate, my brain and research took me in two different directions.
Rumors of the name of the snow-white Samoyed began circulating this week, and Travis Kelce confirmed them when he referred to his and his wife's new dog as 'Wendy' when speaking about her on today's episode of New Heights. You can see the sweet, fluffy gal posing with her person for his new campaign for Tommy Hilfiger in the fashion brand's Instagram reel below:
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But, why Wendy? We can only speculate, however, this wouldn't be the first time the name has come up for either Kelce or Swift.
Travis Kelce Has Talked About His Appreciation For Wendy Peffercorn From The Sandlot
During a New Heights podcast in May 2025, Travis and Jason Kelce talked about watching The Sandlot. While Jason described the character as "overrated," Travis countered that the lifeguard featured in a scene from the 1993 movie was "sooo hot." Played by Marley Shelton, Wendy Peffercorn was the lifeguard that Squints tricked into kissing him when she thought she was saving his life. It resulted in him and his friends getting banned from the pool, and is undoubtedly among the most iconic scenes in the movie. Clearly, Wendy made an impression on Kelce.
So much of an impression that he'd name his dog after the character? Perhaps.
Wendy Has Played A Role In Taylor Swift's Music (The Character, Not The Dog... Yet, Anyway)
The moment I heard the name "Wendy" as the rumored name for Taylor and Travis' dog, my mind went right to "Cardigan," and the lyric where she sings:
I knew you, Tried to change the ending, Peter losing Wendy
While the 2020 folklore single was the main reference I thought of, Wendy is also present -- in my interpretation anyway -- in The Tortured Poets Department's "Peter," where Taylor seems to be singing from the perspective of Wendy. The song focuses on a woman who's singing about a boy who promised to come back to her when he grew up. And although she tried to wait for him to come find her, she -- as "the woman who sits by the window" -- eventually chooses to "turn out the light."
It's a sad song. In fact, so is the reference in "Cardigan," as I interpret it. So it's entirely possible the references in her music and the dog's name are coincidental. On the other hand, if Taylor does (or at one point did) feel a connection to the storybook character, maybe she liked it as a name for her and her now-husband's dog.
Whether or not either of these connections has anything to do with why Travis and Taylor named their dog Wendy, we can only guess until either shares more of the story. Still, it's fun to speculate! The same as it's fun for me to wonder about how Taylor's cats -- Meredith, Olivia and Benjamin Button -- are getting along with the new pup. Hopefully they're settling into married life well with their fur-family, especially as Travis Kelce gears up for the NFL season, and Taylor prepares for whatever's next for her career.
