Yes, we name some of the cows. My dairy/nurse cows get names more often but some of the beef girls get names. Had a "family" of cows that came from my first "beef" animal that I raised on a nurse cow. Smokey because she was a grey with some white...hol/charl/hereford??? maybe. Anyway, bred her back angus and started the line. Bred her AI once to a limi and ran her with a friends charl. She had Daisy, "crazy" who was, Sandy, Saphire.... next generations heifers were Diamond, emerald, ebony...some others. Sandy had Smoke who was a smokey solid grey, then Smoke had a "Surprise"... got bred by a neighbors bull younger than I like and calved at 19 or 20 months. Still have Smoke, and Surprise, and Smoke had Black Smoke... there are a couple of others I think.
Lara my oldest dairy cow is 1/2 jer 1/2 hol. Named for the dairy she came from...Has Mara, daughter who had a set of twins 3 days apart. First one born dead, 2nd one born 3 days later alive so is Lucky...calves marked with identical tiny white spot on forehead...Had each with no apparant problem in the barn....Have a guernsey Sweetie pie because she will take any calf, her 1/2 angus daughter Brownie.... but there is also #29 jersey and her daughter #29, #801 that came from another person....
Have had a Levi, Dottie, and have daughters like Dark, Splotch, Star....
But we have ALOT of numbers too.
Often name cows after whomever we got them from and name some of the heifer calves we keep. Ray Speckles was a big b/w speckled cow and she has a daughter "red speckles"....