Have you ever stopped to think about the fact that you have a name?

Have you ever fully appreciated that you do not share your name with lunch meat?

(Please forgive me if I have offended any readers named Pastrami Thompson, Corned Beef Jones, or Liverwurst P. Remington VI.)

You know Bacon and Porkroll and Taylor Ham and Salami. Chicken Nugget and Fontina and Mozzarella and Cheddar. But do you recall the least famous deli cat of all?

His head is as round as a sourdough loaf. His body type resembles the turkey torpedo under the deli counter — you know, the one the deli guy needs both arms to lift, like a honey-roasted bundle of joy. His favorite recipe is Plexiglas Rigatoni, consisting of the solarium tube stuffed with himself.

He is Bologna, and he is beloved at Tabby’s Place.

Now, I know you visit this blog for our impeccable journalistic integrity, so I’m not about to spread some salty rumors. But Nerf told Nirvana, and Nirvana told me, that you can bet all your pimentos on the possibility that Bologna is the “original grey daddy” of half the cats in Suite A. (I won’t tell you who coined this term, only that her name rhymes with Zenise.)

As you will recall, this pewter party pack came to us last summer from a crowded colony. Fifty-plus probable kinfolk shared fifty (nearly identical) shades of grey. They have used this to our advantage, switching places like hoodlum twins. Was that Rubiks or Polaroid giggling at you as they ran past? Only their father would know for sure.

But their father (or uncle, or step-grandpappy) is in the solarium tube, pretending to be some kind of purring panini.

It’s not that Bologna is not sweet. To the contrary. His full name is Sweet Bologna. The deli version is smoked with molasses and sometimes called “meat candy.” (I wish I did not know this information, but I do, and now so do you.)

The feline version is as squishy as a kaiser roll and sometimes called Bo-lo-lo, Bolog-Noggin, or Boss. When resistance is not on the menu, he remembers he actually does get a craving for human affection. He will positively feast on your chin skritches and forehead strokes, to say nothing of the delicacy known as slow-roasted blinks.

In fact, the one thing larger than Bologna’s noggin is his heart.

Bologna has never met a creature he does not love like his very own child. (Eighty percent of them, including half of our staff, may be his biological children, but this is a coincidence.)

In his early days at Tabby’s Place, Bologna quivered as though he feared we would coat him in cold, molded mustard. Yet he would escape the thick aspic of anxiety to get close to another cat. Jowls a-jiggling, Bologna would sprint from his bunker for feline company. The next thing he knew, someone was speaking his name.

His name.

Bologna’s eyes turned as bright as banana peppers. He might not be able to remember the names of all his offspring, but he knew one thing: they all had names. You get a name if someone loves you.

But Bologna hadn’t done anything to merit a name. He hadn’t shnoogled or canoodled or accepted a single boop on his nose. Surely, we were thinking of some other Bologna. Surely, we had the paperwork wrong. Surely, names are earned, not given.

To which we had just one response: baloney.

This is Tabby’s Place, the long picnic table where there are no last cats picked. You can hide and fuss and call us names I can’t repeat on this blog. You can snap into our shins like pickles or say we are as intelligent as small curd cottage cheese.

You can prank call us at night pretending to be Guy Fieri. (I can neither confirm nor deny that Poppa Lay does this. Regularly.) You can refuse to let us touch your toes for ten years, even though they are heavenly cannellini beans worthy of copious kisses.

You can do anything you like. There are only two things you cannot do.

Lose our love … or earn it.

Our Bologna has a name, because our Bologna belongs in this family. As a matter of fact, so do you. Pull up a chair.