Rip was the first thing that came to mind. I think it's kinda cute.
If he's a friendly, approachable dog, especially a dog that looks friendly (you know, like a St. B or something), I don't see why it should cause too much of a problem. People tend to judge the name on the -dog-, especially based on what they've been told by the media and public opinion about the breed, rather than anything else, so whilst Rip on a pitbull or something, a breed that people might find a bit scary, might be a bit too on the nose, if it's a big, friendly dog, the kind of big softy that crops up in kids films all the time, I don't know if people -will- get a bad impression from it, y'know? I don't know if that makes sense.
It's a bit like, a big fluffy teddy-bear of a mountain dog named
Wolf will probably have more positive responses to your choice of name than a rottweiler named
Wolf. The same goes for a mountain dog and a rottweiler who are both named Cuddles, though. Even though they could both be sweet animals, it's both the look of the animal and the social perception of them which matters a lot. So I'm kind of agreeing with you, but it does kinda depend on the impression of the individual animal as to how the name will be perceived at the end of the day.
I had a friend who had St. Bernards called Cujo and Destroyer when I was a kid. Seriously, Destroyer. Despite their names, because they were sweet and looked sweet, nobody ever seemed particularly worried about a giant dog named Destroyer trundling down the road at the them.
Just out of curiosity, why did you pick
Euripides for your dog? It's an interesting choice.
And to answer your question, what about
Ripley (? Eh.) or
Des?