Fallout Dog Names

One of the most noteworthy things in the game is the fact that they give you a dog companion, one who follows you into Fallout 2, 3 and 4. And he's been regarded as one of the top 10 sidekicks in video games of all time. It's Dogmeat, weird name and all. In the original game, he was found in Junktown in 2161, terrorizing an NPC named Phil. It certainly set the stage, as this dog absolutely refused to listen to any orders, and always somehow found trouble to get himself in.

Which meant, of course, that you as his new owner had to fight to the death to keep the dog alive, something that holds true even in the newer games in the series. People will literally restart entire sections of the game if he dies in combat, refusing to let Dogmeat die.

Why? Because he's man's best friend, and because he's the game's moral compass. You do a lot of questionable things in every Fallout game. From liberally taking drugs, to shooting innocent people, to stealing, or bribing. Even blackmailing and gambling. So Dogmeat is basically the Vault Dweller (playable character's) redeeming quality. 

This especially comes into play in serious sections of the game. For instance, in the original game, there is a section in the Mariposa Military Base, where Dogmeat will run into a force field and die trying to keep up with you. This will later be disclosed in the Vault Dweller's memoirs. But if you want to keep him alive, you need to seal him inside different rooms to protect him from super mutants. Imagine some large, generally dumb, Hulk-type characters that hit super hard, and those are super mutants. You'd want the dog to stay away too.

In the newer games, such as Fallout 4, Dogmeat got a new look, resembling a German Shepherd with a lighter brown coat. He is still just as clingy and adorable, only now resembles River, a German Shepherd owned by Michelle Burgess, the wife of Joel Burgess, Senior Designer at Bethesda Softworks.