Naming your dolls

I usually try to shell my characters that already have names. A lot of my characters were named after people I met that impressed me in some way or close friends of mine.

 

The name of my wind doll just suddenly came to me one evening in bed, Fiona suits a redhead as she is.

 

I really like going with a theme when it comes to names. Flowers, herbs, minerals, colours, constellations, fruits, foods, etc. I've always gone with very specific themes for my pokemon when I start a new game, and I've always enjoyed that aspect of playing pokemon- figuring out what flower/gem/whatever suits this and that pokemon the most based on type and appearance. So now that I've scrapped my original idea for my doll crew I kind of want to go with the same naming convention for my dolls.

(I really like flower names, so I will probably go with flower names... lol)

 

naming them is so hard!!! I've had my pukifee rin for 2 years and still have no name set for her been calling her by her sculpt name

 

i feel like the naming process of my first doll was similar to op's. i didn't write or plan out a character for him before i got my dp oz, so all of my decisions came after the fact as i was throwing different options around while defaulting to "oz" in the meantime. i think i settled on "anglade" after his look and sense of style began to come together for me!

 

When it comes to naming dolls that aren't shelled OCs, names start popping into my head once I see them fully painted. The off topic doll I have that came with a faceup from his previous owner had a bit of personality to it, and kind of inspired a couple of names that I played with until one stuck. The two I've painted came to me as I painted them and kind of "got to know" them in a way. I might have luck with that since I used to look at a LOT name books all the time back when I did roleplay, but sometimes you can just look at a person (or a doll) and they look like a certain name.

 

Do you all have a name set for your dolls? Or are you like me and need to see them and get their personality first before a name comes? Also, most dolls already have a name. Do you keep the name? I have one doll that I kept the name.

 

I've never kept the sculpt name for my doll.
I usually name characters with baby name sites - magicbabynames.com is my favorite because it gives you names similar to names you already like!



I also name a lot of characters with a bit of a theme, a lot of my dolls have either old fashioned sounding names, plant based names, or old fashioned sounding plant based names!

A few of my crew include:
Ichabod, Rosalind, Marguerite, Hawthorne, and Henrietta.

 

This reminds me of a question comic artists always get about whether they come up with the character or the design first. And most of the time everyone has the same answer, myself included: you switch between characters. Sometimes you have the inspiration for a name, sometimes you have one for a personality. If you like the first part, stick to it, and the next one will arrive naturally. If you come up with a personality first, look through name meanings and symbolism if needed and find one that matches. If you come up with a name first, just think of what personality you would associate it with. Using the doll's given name tends to work as a temporary placeholder, though.

 

I’ve done some of each. At least 2 have swapped/stolen another's name (different than re-shelling)...and a couple retain their sculpt name or have kept it as part of their name. As I’m looking over our collection, one needs a name...I was not sure I’d keep him so he just got called his sculpt name for convenience...one has been re-shelled so her old sculpt is now a nameless doll with no character, and one got named but has never progressed with character development so he lingers there in dolly limbo with no story thread at all when he was intended to have one.
We have 1 full doll I received in a trade and she has no name or story at all after...hm....3 years?

 

The girl that I've got on order is specifically for a character I already have, Aeron - but when I was creating the character, her name came after.

It really depends on what your purchasing habits are - do you shell existing characters or do you buy sculpts you like and see what happens? Either way is perfectly valid.

 

I've got a bad habit of getting a name in a brilliant flash as I'm falling asleep...And since I don't wake up enough to write it down, it evaporates by morning!

 

My three minifees have been named by my best friends. Since we're all writers we tend to have a reservoir of names we like, and I felt that it was a way for them to be a little more involved in one of my favorite hobbies, even if they don't "get it." Two of them are now really interested in seeing what I'm doing with them after they named them, haha. Also knowing that they're named by my best friends makes me bond with them even better and move on to the rest of the character process, rather than having me constantly question my own naming decisions.

 

Once my Minifee arrives, well, I plan to give her the name that my boyfriend and I plan to name our future daughter. We plan to get married by the time we are in our LATE 20's and have our child once we are in our early 30's hehe I pray and hope things will be fine.

 

I'm extremely lazy with my doll's names. Usually if a word comes to my mind while creating them, I will use that word or a name that sounds like that word as their name.

If all else fails I'll just come up with a stupid pun

 

All my dolls when they arrived i have a few names in mind for them, so i will call them and see which 1 remember, but i do have dolls that had a name change cos i kept calling them wrongly.

 

What a coincidence that this pops up because I'm right in the middle of naming some dolls that are coming my way. I have different strategies, sometimes I have a set name from the beginning and some time the name takes some time to develop. Like I start with one name and then in ends like a totally different name. I do try to capture a story with the names and love to mix in some folklore references if possible. I also think it's important the sounds and pronunciation fit the chararcter. And then Chek if theirs not another hidden meaning to it. For example for my latest souldoll Junia I loved the sound of marmosa. Thought it was a random name but when I googled it it was actually an oppusum species. Since she's more of een insect/moth character I just could not give her that name anymore. However I do like the sound flow so I'll probably end up with a altered version.
I think I'll never keep the sculpt name, just because it doesn't feel natural most of the time and not personal. Also try to learn to refer to my dolls with their names and not company names, but that's quite hard sometimes in discussion

 

For the three I currently have, I thought up a list of names beforehand. One of them I ended up giving a completely unplanned name on the spot, because after looking at her all assembled, the name just fit. I highly doubt I'll ever be tempted to keep a sculpt's name. Some dolls have absolutely gorgeous sculpt names (Mindulrae, Narae, p much any of Bimong's sculpt names lol), but customizing dolls is fun, including their names.

 

I use the same system for naming my dolls as I do for my pets. I just look at them and let names come to me. The first that pops up is what it gets, and I never regret it. They all fit wonderfully. Though once, a cat was named a non-name as I suddenly had a craving for Ravioli while naming...