How You Named Your Doll

For me, my image of the doll's character is what helps me to decide. ☆
(Which can be difficult when your poor dolly is in pieces and has no clothes yet. hahaha)

 

For me, I name my dolls using three steps.

Step 1: I'll look for names that I like. For example, I want one of my dolls to have a french name. I will look for a list of french names. Once that's done, I will move on to step 2.
Step 2: Now that I have a list, I will pull out my doll (or a picture of it) and place the doll beside me. I will look at the face of the doll and make a decision what's the name that best represents my doll.
Step 3: After that, I will start calling my doll that name (instead of the company name) and have a feel for it. By the end of a week or so, if I'm accustomed to it, like the way it sounds and matches my doll's personality, clothing and style (according to me), I will stick with that name. If not, I'll go through the process once again until I find the right name. So far, these steps worked for me.

 

The name is the hardest part to be honest. You have to find something that fits your character (if it calls for that).

My girls are named Dee and Dawn.

I named her Dawn because the definition of Dawn is "the start of something" or "beginning" (she was my first doll). Dawn is the life of the party. She knows she's beautiful, she knows she's got everything she needs. I would say she tries to lift her adopted sister (Dee) up from depression.

I named my other doll December (she goes by Dee, though) because she is going to be a goth character. I want her eyes to be all white and her clothes to be black. I love that contrast.

When you think of December, you usually think of white (snow and such), but for me, I think of dark stuff (suicide, depression) since December is the month with the most suicides annually.
Her hair, in my profile picture (please keep in mind that this pic was taken right when I got her - no faceup, nada), represents the two sides of her.

She has a light side. She cares for family and friends like no other, but the dark black side represents the struggle she goes through mentally with depression.

You don't have to go so in depth though. I just thought I would describe my story behind my dolls. I hope this gives you some sort of inspiration.

 

For naming any characters I usually look up names for inspiration, then modify them or combine names to come up with unique ones. I haven't really named my dolls this way, my two new ones came with their names and my first doll was named by a friend. I named my rats that way though (lol). I will have to see what I do for my chloe ltf though..

 

Many of my dolls are named after some favorite book characters (Dantes, Rosiel, Diogo, Sebastian, Jorgen, Santi, Chester, Orien), others just came to mind while looking at the doll (Sasha, Valin, Jubilee, Xavier, Crash, Jasper, Vincent, Rowen) and others I got inspired by either friends or things (Almond, Pasha, Riley, Sky, Elias), the only ones I got from googling "baby names" are Kyoshi, Soran, Solsken and Vance. And there are names I don't remember where I got them from XD probably from a tv show or movie (Toby, and Kovee).

 

I love coming up with names, and have them for dolls I don't own yet! My first doll got my favorite baby name, Emily, since I've decided I don't want to have kids. My Delf Miyu became Alex when I decided to get her tomboy type clothes. I wanted the name of a pink flower for Briallen since she's a pink elf. All of my girls have a theme color and a flower in their names. My newest doll, an Angel Elf Soo, is Cheonsa Nari - Angel Lily. Naming is so much fun.

 

Most of mine are named after people I like or names I had chosen for future children years ago as a teen when I thought I might actually want kids. Others, I choose by picking a name I like, but if the name is too close to a real friend or family member's name and would be awkward, I'll search baby name sites for names that sound similar or have similar origins. I usually prefer for my dolls to have regular human names, so I don't care about having something too unique or fancy.

 

Since most of my collection is fantasy dolls, I wanted their names to be somewhat unique as well. I prefer older names like Tobias, Darius, Mackenzie, and Claude. Once I have an idea for what my dolls' character will be like, I'll check out baby name sites to see what certain names mean and when I find something I like, it sticks.

 

Both my dolls (including the one that's not here yet, haha) are based on original characters of mine so the names came from the characters.

In Rain's case it had to do with her mother being awfully uncreative and naming her after the fact that it was raining when she was born, which turned out to be ironic since she later specialized in magic that controls the weather (not due to the fact that it was raining when she was born, that was just a coincidence). Her mother used elemental magic herself so she liked the idea of naming her kid something nature-related, and then Rain had to deal with the teasing her whole childhood. So if you think about it Rain's name came more from me developing her mother's character than anything, haha. I like how it sounds though.

Teiwa's name comes from Norse mythology and is one of the many spellings of Tîwaz, who was a god that came before Odin's generation... if I'm remembering that right. She's one of my oldest characters so her origin is slowly starting to get foggy in my memory, and I haven't checked the mythology in a while. Point is, the important characters in the story she's from all had names that came from Norse mythology because at the time I thought that'd be cool and now I can't see them with any other names, and in her case her being a girl with a male name was a plot point so there's also that. If I remember right Tîwaz also had some sort of relation with wood, and she has a connection to plants so that was part of the logic too, I think.

For these two and several of my characters I generally picked some characteristics of the character in question and started drawing connections to get to a name I liked for them. Occasionally I'll decide a character needs a name in X language though and then I look up baby names in said language. My examples both have somewhat unusual names (Teiwa much more than Rain obviously) but sometimes I'll just pick whichever name sounds right when I think about the character, like with Alice, Hunter, Christy and whatnot.

 

@sweetophelia, I guess I'm the last person who should recommend anyone how to name their bjds, because I'm never quite serious about my dolls' names, but I guess it's just fine not to be too serious

e.g. I named one of my girls Poussie, because she's a girl. Puss started as a joke, but then it just got stuck. Life I just changed the spelling of the one-which-is-like-for-a-cat.
then, I named my boy with the male version of my own name With a lil prefix to it
Yet another I named with a male version of my most favourite name ever.
Then, like any major fangirl should: I named my other girl after one of my fav guitarists (he's a male, but his name's fine for both, and even more popular among females these days (nope, it's *not* Alice Cooper :3)

If I were to name any other dolls that I may ever have, I'd go for all the things that remind me of nice things. Louise/Louis after the French kings (in my language, it sounds old-fashion-ish classy). A good idea would be to name the dolls after pretty/cute/sweet objects: Pearl, Strawberry, etc. Plus, - again as a half-joke, to pair with my Poussie, I could have Minette (what? Soom named theirs like this, so why not? It sounds cute, plus it reminds me of nice things (in general) so why not I just try to make sure that

 

I usually have character backgrounds before I have a name.
With Fitz, I had already planned on his mother being a big fan of classic literature and when I found out Mr. Darcy's(from Pride&Prejudice) first name was Fitzwilliam, it fit his character perfectly.
I don't have the doll yet, but Fitz will have a younger brother named Charles, after Mr. Bingley from the same novel.
My siblings, Rowan and McKenna, are Irish, so I was just looking at Irish baby names and found two I liked. Total coincidence that they have the same meaning, though.
Lyall is a little forest spirit in charge of the animals, so her name means wolf.
Maxwell is just a name I liked and thought fit him.
Eugene is a name I fell in love with from The Walking Dead. Haha, that Eugene and my Eugene are complete opposites though.

 

The doll I already have, I named Ciel because he was based off of my favorite character of the same name.

 

I tend to name my dolls within an hour of getting them, usually by saying something along the lines of "You look like a -name-, guess that's what I'm gonna call you!" And it always sticks. Has to be in my hands though, I can't name them if I haven't recieved them yet.

Also I have kept the name that one of my previous doll's owners named him because it fit so well. I did ask first, but it was a pretty funny exchange.

 

Usually I just have to sit and think about the character I'm making. I'm a language enthusiast and as such words, and therefore names come easy to me since I spend several hours reading and researching them. Other times I'll just make up a name such as in the cases of Calvaethor, Visvaldis and Riveyner...

I'll bring my newest acquisition as an example, Riya, my Irrealdoll Nur. Originally I considered a couple 'random' names I simply liked as placeholders just in case either would stick because Nur's character was anything but solid by the time I ordered him which is rare for me but do humor me; I never thought I'd own this doll. The first name that popped into mind was Zephyr because one of the first images I molded of him in my head was of him sitting in a tree with the wind rustling his hair. However... he was certainly not a Zephyr, nor was he a Kiseki, which was the second name I considered because let's face it, the fact I could order him was a miracle in and on its own. In the end his name only came to me until after I sat down and fleshed his character out a bit. Turns out that one of the primary characteristics of the little Nur is his gentleness and as such I picked "Riya" to be his name, which is a word meaning "kind" or gentle in Hymmnos, a conlang made for the Ar Tonelico series of games (and related works). Funnily enough I was also told it means 'singer' in Sanskrit a language that Hymmnos is heavily based on; and not only that but Hymmnos is used in context of the game to cast song magic, and I had already decided that Riya was going to be a sort of 'song weaver' or spiritual healer/chanter even before I had picked any name for him. xD; so it just all fell into place perfectly.

Another funny, much less serious example is Ravn. Ravn, unlike most people, got to pick his own name when he split from the person who was his host while growing up (really long story, we'd never finish if I went into details). He picked Ravn because he thought it made him sound kinda badass and cool... yep, that's all.

Nero's name is a corruption of Niiro (which is his actual name). Niiro means 'two colors' in Japanese, Nero means black in Italian. This misconception came about due to Nero only remembering what his name sounded like, not what it was written as due to having barely any recollection of his past.

 

Most of my dolls are based after pre-existing characters I myself created, but a few of them were made on-the-spot and I either chose their name because it seemed to fit (like in the case with Farera, he/she is a fairy so it sounded right) or because of a song I liked that reminded me of that particular doll (as with the case of Candy, from 'I want Candy' by Bow Wow Wow).

 

My doll's name is Flynn. But it was only through a month of deciding and researching that I got to it!
During the month I waited for her, I had a lot of time to think of a name. So, I decided to go with a name that embodied her personality, something "warm" and "cozy". I was deciding between Charlotte and Tessa but they didn't really stick with me, and then I was like oh wow wanderlust is such a pretty word (hence my username). So I searched up names that meant wanderlust and found Flannery, and I thought that was really creative and I shortened it to Flynn. It was instantly the name I knew I wanted. So yeah. It might be a game of chance and luck, but I think baby name websites could really help and finding names that match your doll's personality. :3

 

It's so interesting reading how people came up with their doll names. One of mine is going to have the same name as this girl I went to undergrad with. Not because she's so awesome (she's cool, but we're not that close) but because I thought she had an awesome name. The other one that is coming at the same time has already changed names several times. Nothing seems to stick just right, but the one that I've got in mind now, might be okay.

My future girl already has a name picked out and it's so cute. I just need to find a doll to match it!

 

I pick a name around their backgrounds and also based on the fact if I want to break a "type" or not. Most of my dolls and characters are poc, specially part of my own culture, so because of that I pick their names around what fits their character and how close they are to their own culture, along with how their backgrounds play out.

Ezekiel, for example is half Brazilian and half Mexican but moved to the US at an early age and his mother picked his name. It is a popular Latino name and a name I have liked since I was little, to be honest I didn't know it had a biblical meaning until later on when I was like twelve which made sense as to why it is so popular in Latino countries.

On the other hand Robin, even though he is from the Caribbean and his mother is white-American, he doesn't have what would people consider 'a proper name' for someone like him, which is what I wanted to begin with, not to mention he is a taller tough looking guy so having a softer name like Robin creates a nice contrast with his personality and who he really is.

I think I always think of my character first before naming them, since I like them to all fit together and get cozy with who they are =u= just what I prefer I guess.

 

I'm so happy to read everyone's stories and hope it helps me get my butt in gear. I'm at my wits' end trying to come up with names. Naming usually takes me a long time but I'm going on year two with my dolls and still nothing so it's getting ridiculous. I'm sure it doesn't help that they don't have face ups or outfits