In early lockdown, my friend Jess got a pandemic puppy. She told me she was considering naming him Knish. I suggested Babka, and, as though it was an unspoken truth that the new puppy must be named after a Jewish food, we ran through every example we could think of.
Latke was too obvious, and Cholent sounded more like a bulldog. Mufletas was dismissed as “too hipster.” Eventually, I suggested Sufganiyah. Jess, who works in the Jewish nonprofit world, jumped on it. They would call him Sufi for short, she said – arguably bringing a whole other religion into the game, but Jess and I had become friends in divinity school, so that seemed fitting. Her boyfriend Andrew agreed, and Sufi joined their other dog Mazel.