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Well... he was a neighborhood cat who decided (quite emphatically) to adopt us when we lived in Milpitas, California ('89-91).
He was quite fluffy (and tail-less!) and I assumed, fate being what it is, that the cat was a female, and started calling ahem her Grisabella*
When we reached the point of acquiescence
my wife took the cat to a vet to get checked over -- and it turned out he was a fixed male. Our (then quite young) daughter said (in essence) No worries, we can call him Griswold. It's a fine name (Eliot would've approved, I reckon) and it stuck immediately. He moved back to the east coast with us in 1991.
Years later we learned that his a-caudal state
was due to nurture not nature. He developed arthritis (rare in cats unless they've had physical trauma). X-rays showed that his tail had been amputated (?!) 
-- very possibly the result of being hit by a car, per the vet. He was a very good cat** and lived to a ripe old age. Based on earlier estimates of his age by some vet along the line, he was about 20 years old when he died.
Very early digital photo taken by my cousin, a techie guy and very early consumer digital camera adopter.
_____________
* ... of TS Eliot/Cats fame. Grizabella, the Glamor Cat.
** My wife wasn't a cat person at all. Griswold changed that, and we subsequently had three other cats -- none of whom, frankly, lived up to Griswold's standards!
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