Naming your dolls

I usually look at the character(or doll) in this case, and come up with a few letters I have in mind for their first name. Then I narrow those down to one. In cases of dolls I base on Earth, I choose a name I like from their country of Origin from a baby names website ^^
I also make up a ton of original names too, based off of cool words or cool sounding vowel combinations. My boys Anno and Uriel are both Latin words because I'm obsessed with Latin ^^;

Last names are trickier for me. All of my characters are usually paired with my friends characters so although it may sound cheesy, I pick a last name that would sound good given to her character if they were married.

 

My doll Arwen was a bit difficult for me to name, I'm a writer and have plans to shell many of my characters but she was totally unplanned.
For her, she's an elf so I wanted to go with something that sounded plain, I browsed a few elven name sites but couldn't really find a fit. I originally really wanted to call her Sansa but after calling her that a couple days, it just didn't feel right. Arwen was one of my first choices as well, but I hesitated to call her that at first, I wasn't sure what people would think.
I'm rather glad I decided on that name for her though, I feel it fits. I still secretly hope I find a girl later I can call Sansa in the future though.
Last names are only something I give to actual characters, I find them difficult so I don't bother with them unless I absolutely need them.

 

I usually give my dolls Flower names.
You should let them tell you what their names are. Play with them for a little while and see what they say.

 

I am not a writer and i imagine my dolls stories slowly. So the name usually comes before the character backround is completely set, but the hair, eyes and clothes style seem to matter a lot in my choice : i cannot decide for a name when i have just recieved the naked doll. (except for one exception, my Venitu whose name came to my mind even before i got him )

When the doll arrive, and during the weeks it may take for him/her to get the right clothing and hair and so on, i try to think about a letter or a sound that would match him, and it helps for my searches.
But anyway yeah, they will end up telling you their names, and even if these names have nothing to do with your preferences or your searches, when you will think about these very names it will seem to be the evidence ^^

But none of my dolls do have a last name. I should think about that XD

I have a problem related to that name choising topic, though, i need advices too ! I got bored of one of my dolls, and thought about selling her. Instead i tried and changed everything about her. Her wig, her eyes and her clothes style, everything except her make up. She is like a complete different person and i really love her again... but her name doesn't fit her as well as it did anymore.
Has it happened to one of you to change your doll names, after some times, for one reason or another ?

 

Omg me too! I think it's a synaesthetic association that I get between the appearance/colours of my doll and the first letters of their name. My newest incoming, Tyresias, was very nearly Tyrian, purely because his skin colour/hair colour match gave me T Y and R as the starting letters. And I went with Tyresias over Tyrian because the wig I've made for him is quite wild and unruly, which put me more in mind of the letter S than the neat, cleanliness of the "ian" ending.

 

Most of my dolls are named before they're ordered and are based on my OCs. They all have full names, first and last and usually middle. Most of the time, I pick names from baby name websites or name them after people I know, celebrities or movie characters.

Luc is an exception. I did not plan him. My sister bought a doll for herself and she got to choose an event head. She knew I liked one of the sculpts previously and gave me the head, along with a body she was tired of trying to sell unsuccessfully. I didn't know what to do with him. His personality came to me faster than his name. He was stubborn on the name. Going about my usual methods, before he arrived home, I decided on Lucas Branden Hayden. I would call him Luke. Once he arrived, I started getting really strong feelings that I was totally wrong. Luke was too common, especially with the new Star Wars movie, so it had to be spelled Luc. Hayden was wrong and the name MacLaren continuously popped up everywhere for that first few days--on tv, in a movie, online, in a book I was reading. He had to be Luc MacLaren. Branden was all wrong too and a different name popped into my head very strongly there too.

I usually just choose names I like but sometimes it's almost as if they 'tell' me their names through coincidences and random occurrences!

 

I have a very battered, well-worn Baby Names from Around the World book. It's a first stop when I need a name. ^^; I have to admit, I'm a bit of the "Well, you look like a (fill-in-the-blank)" naming school. Sometimes I have a feeling for nationality or family background, and go from there. Sometimes the universe just offers up a decent suggestion and it sticks.

I like mythological names a lot, and I really love plant names for girls. (I have a Violet, Iris, Laurel, and two Lillys!) I did name one doll after someone I knew. My AprilStory Minngu reminded me so much of an infant I had in my class when I taught in a daycare center that I named the doll after her.

My big problem is that I have a tendency to go to the same sounds again and again, and I have to really keep myself from going back to those sounds. ~_~; Surely there are names that don't start with "A" or "Al-" that I would find appealing!

 

I am not a writer either, but I do have characters. As for names, though, I tend to like names that feature the letters a, n, k, i, s, r, and e. This probably stems from the fact that my own name has these sounds in it. Senna, for example, goes along with the plant/food naming that Luts seems to like giving their KDF line. I really like the idea, and name-wise I knew I wanted something short, cute, and easy to say.

I tried playing with my previous dolls to see if they would 'talk' to me and give me their names, but it just didn't happen. So, with Senna I made a list of names based off what I see in the Basil sculpt. I'm really happy with doing this, because the ideas I had name-wise gave me flexibility that eventually shelling a certain older character of mine will not.

 

I LOVE behindthename for naming purposes! I tried to do the 'oh, let's just run with it and see if a name comes to me' but that never works out for me. I just end up with a character that has a two-word description instead of an actual name
So in the end I have to sit down with some tea and rummage through that site, and wikipedia, and several books, until I found something I like.
I do like to give them names after gems, especially when they fit their personality, or flowers. I also noticed that I really like names that are simply nouns, such as a character named Phalanx, or a pair of siblings called Mirrors and Smokes.

 

Ung naming is the bane of me. I take forever to name anything but I do agree! I love to discover names that has meaning behind them especially if they somehow pair well with the story I've made for them.

 

All of my girls are actually named after my RP characters. There may be one or two in the future that don't adhere to that, but for now, that is how they are all named.

 

I actually just renamed one of mine when I realized that my dolls were not characters I had previously imagined. Berwyn and Sindri are both different than I imagined but have kept their names. When my Lan got her new wig, I saw that she wasn't Rosemary anymore, she was Maite! They're both witches but quite different.

 

Well, it didn't start on purpose, butall of my dolls names start with the letterA. That includes even my non-bjd and last names for those who have them.
I have considered switching to other letters, but so far can't bring myself to it. Maybe if I have a doll someday who refuses an A name it will change the rule.

 

I too use a baby names book....I have one called "new age baby names" which is fun to flip through. But I can't name them ahead of time..I have to look at them and pick a name that "feels" right. For some reason they all seem to have hippie style names...I have no idea why that is....they just seem to be free spirits!

 

I name mine after relatives, celebrities, historical characters or sometimes a name just comes to me after I get them.

 

I always think of their character. Sometimes the naming process is more straight forward, and sometimes it takes a bit of thinking. Like one of my dolls is named Facebones cause she has a skull face mask. But one is called Cheeto, cause the only real food he eats is junk food. Ones called fuckface because shes extremely annoying. Ive named like 6 dolls with that method and im pretty happy with it.

 

It's kind of hard to describe. I look at a doll and think about general personality traits that I think they'll have. Either a name immediately comes to mind and I stick with it, or I do research on names that have meanings that correspond with their overall personhood (usually in non-English languages). ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

None of my dolls have names yet so I've been calling them by their sculpt names as well! Naming is pretty rough for me so to take off the pressure I tend to have them go by a title like The Coroner (who to this day still does not have a proper name!) Other times tho the nickname will help form their name