How would you name this dog?

[NBLi]

Hello everyone!
I am translating a literary work and it contains a "good-natured mutt". His name is Šarko, which is a fairly common generic name for mottled, usually mixed-breed male dogs in my language. The dogs on the pictures below are all named Šarko (I googled "Šarko + dog" and these were the results).
So, what would be a naturally-sounding equivalent in English? I am not going to leave his name as it is in the original because Šarko literally means "the one with patches/freckles/stripes/speckles/blotches" etc., so the name is motivated, not arbitrary.
I am thinking of translating Šarko as Patch. What do you think about that? Do you have any better suggestions?
Thanks in advance!

 

[GreenWhiteBlue]

While "Spot" is a very traditional name for dogs in English, I would not call the markings on these dogs "spots." "Patch" could work, but it would be much more common to meet a dog named "Patches" rather than "Patch."

 

[lingobingo]

Patch sounds rather old-fashioned to me as a name for a dog. So maybe you need to take into account when the work is set?

 

[kentix]

I like Patch or Patches.

 

[Roxxxannne]

I like Patch or Patches.

So do I.

 

[LVRBC]

Spot. I am pretty sure that there was a dog called Spot in all US 1st grade reading books 60 years ago.

 

[Rover_KE]

He looks like a Rover to me.

 

[heypresto]

I like Bruiser or Darth or maybe Slash.

 

[Andygc]

I'm curious. Are all the people and places going to have their names changed as well? What's wrong with "Sarko"? No accent on the S as it doesn't occur in English. There's plenty of dogs whose English names could be regarded as similarly literal - as already suggested in this thread.

Mind you, some friends of ours called their dog "Deefer".

"Dee fer Dog"

 

[NBLi]

While "Spot" is a very traditional name for dogs in English, I would not call the markings on these dogs "spots." "Patch" could work, but it would be much more common to meet a dog named "Patches" rather than "Patch."

Patch sounds rather old-fashioned to me as a name for a dog. So maybe you need to take into account when the work is set?

I like Patch or Patches.

So do I.

Spot. I am pretty sure that there was a dog called Spot in all US 1st grade reading books 60 years ago.

Thank you all for your remarks. It's going to be either Spot or Patch . The work is set in the 1970s in the countryside, so it is actually favorable that the name be old-fashioned.

 

[NBLi]

I'm curious. Are all the people and places going to have their names changed as well? What's wrong with "Sarko"? No accent on the S as it doesn't occur in English. There's plenty of dogs whose English names could be regarded as similarly literal - as already suggested in this thread.

Mind you, some friends of ours called their dog "Deefer".

"Dee fer Dog"

No, I'm going to leave all the proper names as they are. However, with Šarko, I think it is reasonable not to leave it as that because the name is not merely a proper noun, but it is motivated by the colors/patterns of his fur. Think of Only Fools and Horses. Remember Boycie and Marlene's dog Duke? His name was translated in the Croatian subtitles (as Grof), because Duke is again not only a proper, but also a common noun. Had Boycie and Marlene had a dog named Max, then it would have been translated as Max.

P.S. Š is not S with accent, but a different sound - S=S, Š=sh (as in shark) in English.