How did you name your dolls and why he or she is called so?

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I start painting, dressing or just visualizing them and they get their first name usually automatically when some sort of character story starts forming in my head as I customize them. Last names are more difficult, they never just come to me. If I want a particular ethnicity or style I just google some lists and pick the one that sounds nice lol. Pretty much what I also do when I write (non doll-related stories).

I have some nicknames for my dolls too. I have an Asian girl doll named Mary May Bennett (which I only later discovered is almost same as a character from one novel Pride and Prejudice apparently famous in Britain). I like to call her by different Asian names though although she is and remains Mary. As she has a rather inglorious past cheating money from men, I think she has had some fake "working name" that is Asian too.

 

@vauhtikatti Wait, Pride and Prejudice is not famous in Finland? I thought that one's popularity was ubiquitous in every country were a sizable portion of the population knows English.

'Jaqueline' is a version of the name my online alter-ego used to have, which is where the character of my doll can be traced to if you just go back far enough. There were never any different names for this 'character' than variations on a theme, so there was no other option for the doll.
(Does that make her the most horrible kind of self-insert? Possibly :P)

 

I use the name site Behind the Name to help me choose names for my dolls. I try to find names that fit their characters and their ethnicity. For example, my sea sprite is Kaimana, meaning "ocean energy" in Hawaiian. Not all of them have last names, though I mean for them all to have them eventually.

I live in America, and am quite familiar with Pride and Prejudice. I've heard the book on tape and seen both movie versions..

 

Mine are mostly all characters from a book I got a couple hundred pages into and haven't worked on in years. I really like having the dolls cause even in the (likely) event that their story is never finished they still get to exist in some form.

Lorina - Means 'laurel,' since the main symbolism of laurels is victory and someone worked very hard for a long time to find her. Also cause it starts with L and she's the reincarnation of a girl named Lucy with a twin brother named Lucas and he wanted a similarish sounding name (Lori/Lucy) but she prefers Ina as a nickname.

Ilari- Named so because it means 'cheerful' and he's got like, the worst life and it's the least appropriate thing he could be named. In story, though, Lorina made his name out of his dad's (Ilan) since he didn't have one when they met. Younger version (I've got child and adult dolls for him) goes by Ari, which is coincidentally appropriate since his soul ultimately ends up attached to a plush toy lion owned by Mariana (below).

Mariana- A 2nd princess born when everybody really wanted a male heir so she got a name with bitter as one potential meaning since she was such a bitter disappointment. Poor thing. There's kinder interpretations like "star of the sea," which also fits nicely since the capital city she was born in is on an island.

Emie- Just a cute name. Emie! She had really pretty big green eyes when she was born so her name's actually Emerald after those but her parents never really called her that so as far as she knows it's just Emie.

Pup- Real name unknown. He's just a baby, and a zombie besides, so he can't exactly tell anybody what it was. Emie's the one that picked him up and since she's a werewolf she's just calling him her equivalent of baby.

Dolly - Is a doll, and Lorina doesn't like them much and isn't great at naming things so it is just Dolly. Similarly, Mariana owns a toy lion named Ari (which is just lion).

 

It might seem strange but whenever I look at a doll I get a 'feeling' for how they look and more often than that, a name will also come to mind! For Abraham, my first doll, the idea for the doll and his name occurred to me before I found a doll to shell as him. For Timothy his name came to me whilst I was wondering how much longer he'd take to ship to me. For Soffit and Honeytree, their names appeared in my mind as soon as I saw them.

The meaning of the names Abraham and Timothy don't really fit the characters...but Honeytree is a forest fairy so her name fits, and a Soffit is the underside of a construction element and since Soffit is a house elf and builds things, it fits!

 

I get mine's names from all over the place. As soon as I bought my soom alk I knew she had to be named Hypatia after a Hellenistic philosopher.
Klara is my Volks Rinon, I searched baby names till I found one I liked. She had been call Phoebe, but it never really seemed to fit. I'm not 100% on Klara she maybe renamed again.
Baron Von Gikkingen is from a movie so he named himself.
Kit Kat will be my mini machina. Her color reminds me of the green tea kit kats. Honestly nameing them is my least favorite part. It can be so hard to find the right name...

 

Congratulations of getting your first doll OP! Hope you'll love him!

Choosing a name is always my favorite part of getting a new doll/ creating a new character actually! I've always had a fascination with names and their meanings. So much so that when I was in my early teens I spent a lot of time just browsing "baby name" websites and writing down all of my favorite names (with their meanings) in a little book to keep them for future character ideas. I still have that book and sometimes pull names from it even ten years later haha~ I've found that the names of birds, celestial bodies (stars and planets), flowers/plants, and ancient Greek names are some of my most favorite pools to draw from for inspiration. Though most of my favorite names i've discovered through books, television and video games. My favorite types of names are those that sound otherworldly and elegant which are tend to be most plentiful in the genre of fantasy.

The meaning or "story" behind the name is usually always very important to me when settling on a name. For example, I have a doll who is spider themed named Lycoris, which comes from "Lycoris Radiata" which is the scientific name for the Spider Lily flower. Likewise I have a doll named Luneth who canonically comes from the moon and Luneth is like a masculine version of the name Luna which is Latin for "moon". I really love names that are super fitting if you know the meaning/story behind them, but not extremely obvious to the majority of people. Like, I would probably never name a character with red hair Scarlet or Ginger for example because that's just far too obvious for my tastes.

Most all of my current dolls have similarly very fitting names or have meaningful stories behind their choice, except for one of my boys named Hyzenthlay. The name comes from a female rabbit in the book/movie, Watership Down, but my character is neither female or a rabbit (he's actually a anthropomorphic cat) so it isn't really all that fitting, but its a name that i've always found so unique and interesting and it just jumped out at me for him specifically. In hindsight I think that their personalities are somewhat similar and also its kind of fitting to name an anthropomorphic animal character after a real animal character (even if he's not a rabbit), but at the time when I chose it for him it seemed very random haha~

 

Hmmm, let's see...for meaningful names...
Meta is based off of a race from a video game, and his elemental core is pearl, so I used a name that vaguely relates to pearls. Fion, I wanted a name that begins with F, since he's a fox. Orion was originally an onyx elemental, and he also does fortune telling based on the stars. Rae is meant to be lightearted and pure, like a ray of light. Clarinne's voice is pure and clear, like a siren, filled with Clarity. Lionel is a lionfish merman. Noire is a crow-based darkness elemental, who's main color theme is black.

As for other name sources:
Kazhiel is named after one of my OCs, although I'll probably be renaming him to fit with Rae better. Emma was the name of a childhood imaginary friend. Kaine is loosely named after my favorite Final Fantasy character. Aidrian was named by my mother, although I altered the spelling. And finally, Jett's name came from watching too much Cutthroat Kitchen.

I still have no idea where Canaan's name came from.

 

many of the names i come up with for my future dollies are usually mythology inspired! that, or from latin origins. i have loved mythology ever since i was young, so it's fitting to take inspiration from it as i draw up characters. i have a few lists of names i've written up in anticipation of dolls ... it makes me happy to write them down, lol~ i don't think i'll be the sort to name dolls before i get them, though, so i like to think of my lists as a 'pick-and-choose' sort of helper, to test out different names until i find the one that suits my dollie. i hope that makes sense! also, congratulations on your first BJD! i'm so happy for you, i hope everything goes smoothly in the process c:

 

Before I start rambling, may I mention that your Hetalia nendos are adorable?

My BJDs are all part of this story I've had in mind for quite a while now. To keep it simple, the characters all are supposed to come from different planets, inspired by actual human civilizations. So when it comes to naming them, I use names that make sense with which civilization inspired the planet they come from.

I'm also an avid reader and named some of my characters after authors I really like, or characters from certain books I really enjoyed that I can somewhat connect to my own characters!

Only 4 of my characters have been/will be turned into dolls: Elizabeth (SoulDoll Liddell), Karla (DollChateau Bella), Mark-Alem (DollChateau Colin) and Rosalie (DollZone Venus Halo).

I can't go into much depth for Elizabeth and Rosalie, but Karla was named after Karel Čapek, a Czech author (known for his creation of the word "robot"), and Mark-Alem, after the main character of Palace of Dreams, a dystopian novel written by Ismail Kadare, an Albanian writer.

I'm not the type to buy a doll and then trying to work out what to do with them. All the dolls I have, or will have, already have a name, story, unique personality and style attached to them before they even arrive at home!

Hope this could help, welcome to the hobby by the way!

 

I also like using Behind the Name to help me find names for my dolls. I also use various foreign languages and elvin if I cannot find a "name" to use.

I also will use themes for groups of dolls like my Elf Soos are named after birds in other languages, my tiny Elfdolls are named after lunar features in Latin, and my Soomlings are named for their animal types in other languages.

I admit, one of my favorite ones is my DC Madeline. I wanted her to be called princess, so I chose the Xhosa word Nkosazana. She then gave her faceup artist so much trouble I added Umalema (Troublemaker) to her name.

 

My first doll's name was Zero too! Actually, it was Zero Amir Angel, and he went by Amir, but it was in there. In his case, I picked it because of the dog from Nightmare Before Christmas, but in his story, he needed contrasting names--Zero, meaning "nothing" from his dad who was a terrible father, and Amir, meaning "prince" from his mom who was a loving, doting mother. The character has since gotten married and changed his name, dropping the Zero but keeping the rest, now Amir Angel Lindström.

Usually, I choose names either because I like the way they sound, they're similar in sound or origin to whatever person or character inspired my doll, it's a name that fits their culture, or it just feel right. Except for my anthros, my dolls are all human characters in current time, so I tend to look at a lot of baby name websites. Magic Baby Names is my favorite site because it lets you type in a name you like and gives you a list of related names, separated by boy, girl or unisex. These names could be related by meaning, origin, sound, culture, or other ways. Sometimes it generates names used together in pop culture, for example searching for Rachel might give you Monica, Phoebe, Joey, Ross, Chandler. This is great for finding names similar but more unique than a common name, or for coming up with names for siblings.

Occasionally, I'll pick a name that just keeps popping up when thinking about the character. When I was trying to think of a name for my comic relief bully boy, I thought about bullies in 80s/90s movies and tv, and saw Francis and Farkus pop up a lot. I thought those two names sounded similar, but chose Francis of the two. When this happens, it almost feels like the doll is telling you their name!

The anthros used to all get pun names--LucyFaire is a play on Lucifer because she's a devil mouse. Kit got her name because at first glance, I couldn't tell if her sculpt was meant to be a cat or a fox. My mom suggested Kit because it works for a baby of either--kitten or kit! It just stuck. For what it's worth, she's a cat.

 

As of right now I only have one doll, and they're a tiny(as seen in my profile picture), I had no clue what their name would be at first, but as I looked around at other peoples similar dolls I saw a bunch of cute and fun names pop up, things like Bubbles and such..So I decided to go with Cookie because cookies are sweet and make people happy haha. I feel like I might come up with a more serious name in the future for them, and keep Cookie as the nickname.

 

Chaeri's name history is long and storied. I'll try to condense it down to Reader's Digest proportions.

I am an avid tabletop RPGer, and I once had a pyrokinetic idol singer character named Cherry Flame. (Those who played with my kisekae sets back in the 1990s might remember her.) She was Japanese, of course. Her real name was Hono'o Sakura (which literally means "flame cherry [blossom]"). Somewhere along the line I decided to revamp the character and make her Korean instead. She waffles between being a singer and a stand-up comedian. The name, Mun Chae-ri, which is often anglicized as "Cherry Moon" (ignore the Prince references), has nothing to do with cherry blossoms at all."Mun" means "gate" and "Chae-ri" means "white jasmine". That's why her picture in my avatar has white jasmine blossoms in the frame.

Her given name can be written as either Chae-ri, Chaeri, or even Cherry. It's pronounced the same whichever way. Oh, and her nickname is RiRi.

 

I have a file on my computer where I just make lists of names and words that relate to a character and then play mix-and-match with their sounds. And when I come up with a few combinations I like, I'll google them to make sure they aren't real names or at least are uncommon ones. This is what I do for characters from my main writing project, anyway, which is not earth-based and therefore shouldn't have obviously earth-based names. But then some of my characters pre-date Google, and I doubt I even thought to run a web-search back then.

 

Oh geez, there's a few ways! Some dolls have names that I didn't choose - Sanosuke, Soujoubou, Kaguya and Sayo all have names from the historical/literary figure they're based on. Some of my planned dolls, notably my Shinsengumi ones, are the same. I use the names unaltered, so I end up with names and name elements I would normally never use. (My apologies to those who'll have to deal with a Souji and a Soujou in the same story.)

For the ones I made up... Mugetsu was devised as a way to avoid a buying a TD Newmoon, so I gave him a name that meant new moon, and is also a convenient, convoluted anime reference. Fuyu's previous name was Winterberry, so I just translated the first name element and it stuck. Ma Ru (and a planned doll, Dingdu) is named after an entirely random historical figure, in his case a ruler of Gaochang, with different characters to spell it. Tendaiji's Swahili name, Tendaji, was actually chosen first off a baby name site, and then I Japan-ified it a little. Yourang's name is characters I thought sounded cool, pulled off a list of the names of Ming Emperors. Taotao was named such because he is a peach; Hideyasu's was a brain fart moment that lead to the mushing of the names Hideyoshi and Ieyasu; Tianzhu, Dagny, and Vissarion all came off baby names lists, so one of them are particularly deep in terms of meaning. Boris and Nadezhda were named off the top of my head - entirely by accident, they both have animal surnames; Aristanovich (lion) and Orlova (eagle.)

As you can kind of see, I don't necessarily spend a lot of forethought on character names - but I do tend to end up making the names be a little symbolic, or at least relevant, in context. Dagny ("new day") is a very cheerful, optimistic person, Nadezhda is the "hope" of her country's revolutionary party, Fuyu's name comes from her fur, Mugetsu gets compared to a moon a lot (especially a hidden moon), Ru's entire culture tends to be named after house-related things, hence why his name means "bedding," etc.