Naming your dolls

Naming anything(dolls, pets, babies etc) is just hard in general. I usually come up with names and decide if the name fits, if it doesn’t keep searching. Just go off of whatever the doll reminds you of.

 

i started of by comming up with a list of names for my first doll and and trying them out while sitting down with her and looking at her face. it took a while to find one that suited her but i found speaking the name out loud to the doll helped me figure out who she was.

 

How I come up with my dolls name is it take a while for me since I want to feel like the name is right for them. I try to think "naturally" and just let it come to mind of a name for my dolls. Sometime I google for names if I can't think of any at all. But it usually take a long while until I find a name for my dolls.

 

For me, it is pretty hard to find a name for my dolls. I just think that the name is something very important, so I stay hours try to find a name that suit. And I'm still struggling I don't know what to do anymore

 

I was very enthusiastic for naming before. I would think about the doll's character and choose name for him/her. I also borrow names from movie or comic characters somtimes haha. Now I'm tired to do so. I just change their official names a little bit and call them, like Williams->W, Lance->Lancelot.

 

For my first one, I had a tough time, because I had no actual OC planned for her when I got her, and even years later I still haven't decided on a character for her. I did eventually come up with a name, and I'll probably go from there. When I do work on deciding on a name, i go through several of those name lists, real names, fantasy names, whatever I can find and usually end up deciding on one I either like the look/sound of or I like the meaning of and go from there.

 

I like names that are unusual or not common.

 

Mine will be named for the character I'm shelling, but I feel like I can't quite confer the name onto her before she's "done" (ie has eyes, hair, and looks like her head belongs on her body). Until then, she's "the doll-in-progress" or "the impl-fee-enstein".

 

Sometimes the doll just tells me his or her name, other times I really have to think about it. When I'm stuck I look up Celtic baby names online. But even then the name has to jump out at me; it has to really fit the doll.

 

I was planning a character of my doll before I got her. I had a name, personality, background story, I knew how I wanted her to look when she'd be done. I sent her to a faceup artist who did a wonderful job with executing what I had in mind. The doll in the pictures was perfectly fitting all I came up with.

And then I got the head out of the package, looked at it and got a weird feeling in my gut. I ignored it and went on with switching her eyes to what I ordered in the meantime (perfect eyes for the character I invented, of course.) Aaaand... this doll that was looking back at me was a completely different person from what I designed her to be. Her real name was Ingrid, she was a 22-year-old daughter of a Scot and Norwegian and she studied to become a theatre actress. Nowhere near what I planned for her.

So, yeah, my dolls definitely name themselves on the top of having their own stories to tell xD

 

Two of my dolls were OCs who have been floating in my head for years. Once I had a doll in hand, it would feel right linking an OC to a doll sculpt. Otherwise, (strangely enough) I wait for the doll to name themselves. I figure its something like how a doll's theme ends up being chosen, like how my Angel Fantasy Alice naturally gravitated to baby blue which reminded me of the Disney character Alice. But for my Atelier Momoni, she "chose" a name before I even had her in hand.

 

I'm terrible when it comes to thinking up names! Usually, I'll just use "them" as a placeholder at first (which can last anywhere from a few days to numerous weeks) until I come up with something else. And even then, there's a good chance that I'll change my doll's name a few times before settling on something I'm absolutely sure suits them. Generally, I tend to lean towards building a name with meaning behind it that suits my doll's characteristics. But sometimes, the sound of a name just "clicks" to a sculpt for me and I throw any meaning out the window, haha!

 

I like unusual names for my dolls, but I have many with just the names I like, even if they are fairly common. What I love the most is when dolls "name themselves". Like, when you are thinking of a name and suddenly one pops into your mind that you least expected and wouldn't let go until you agree to name the doll that name. Sounds crazy to some people, but I hear most doll owners have experienced it.

 

I like to choose names that match the personality or theme of the doll.

My cat girl, Merope, is the "little sister" to two other (off-topic) cat girl dolls I have, who are also named after the Pleiades sisters (all three have sparkly, glittery, "star" eyes as a common feature). My inbound MiniFee will be Daphne when she arrives, and my plans for future MSDs are all named after flowers as well (Rosalind, Poppy, and Iris are three that I've started making plans for).

 

I take awhile to name my dolls. I just look for something unique that fits the characteristics I gave my dolls. Other times I have names I’ve liked and try to fit it to them. I started writing a doll profile and one dolls story leaf to my other girls name and I was making it up as I went along so the story wasn’t preplanned.

 

It's super hard to name my dolls. I had some ideas about the name before they arrive but after I get them and then decide on the final name after they arrive.

Since I knew I was getting twin dolls, I wanted their names to match a little.
I came up with Sakumochi as the pairing name (which kind of symbolizes cycle of moon) and separated to have one named Saku and the other named Mochi.
It was easy to pick who's who since one is normal skin and the other is brown skin.
The hard part is deciding if it was going to be just Mochi or something-Mochi or Mochi-something...
I ended up naming Mochi as Kannazuki Mochi since Kannazuki is month of October in traditional Japanese calendar.
I don't know what's going to happen to Saku yet since he's not here. Hopefully I can decide on his name when he arrives.

 

Honestly, I find trying to name my dolls as an exercise in futility. They tend to fight me on names I pick for them, except for on rare occasions.
For me, I wait until they arrive, and then they tell me who they are and what their name is.

 

Names are freaking weird.

Sometimes, the name seems to exist, along with a fully-formed personality concept, before you even find the doll. That's really rare in my personal experience, but pretty satisfying.

More often, the name is an elusive, shadowy thing that resists capture. Sometimes, I have a sound that I know the name will contain, and I roll it around in my mouth in different ways until the full name forms. On other occasions, I recognize that there's a flavor or theme to the name that I want to acknowledge. Those names usually require a lot of research, because I often don't have enough background knowledge of the theme to get it right on the first attempts.

All of this methodology breaks down pretty regularly though. Then you'll find me staring into the face of a new (to me) doll, mumbling "who the hell ARE you???" over and over.

 

I am amazed and fascinated reading this thread about how all of you name your dolls.

My first doll was named Anthony because I dreamt he was a real person and in the dream he introduced himself as Anthony. So, he is Anthony Isao Nanjou. I always keep the sculpt name as family name. He cosplays many characters including Anthony Brown from Candy Candy and Amuro Ray from MS Gundam.

Yukinojou Sawaragi Joe is simply Joseph Sawaragi. I have yet to give him a middle name which is usually a cosplay character name. I thought of Charles, Char or Casval but I won’t give those names to just any doll that easily, they are highly reserved names in my list of favourite anime characters.

F38 is Christian Himura because he looks like Christian and he cosplays Kenshin Himura, so his name is easy to figure out. He is sometimes known as Christian Kenshin Himura. Strange right?

Reisner SD 17 is Henry Victor Reisner. Don’t know why except that it suits him. He is a very humble personality, warm hearted, contented easy going type but he is also very formal and serious. The name is right.

Ryoma Sakamoto SD17 is Setsuna Ryoma Sakamoto because he cosplays Setsuna F Seiei from Gundam 00. I am considering changing his name to Setsuna Tatsuma Sakamoto after Tatsuma Sakamoto in Gintama.

Date Masamune sdgr is named Daniel Ashta Date. Daniel as in the biblical character Daniel. This is in line with the historical records of him as a patronage of Christianity in a time when Christians were martyered. Ashta as in Judau Ashta from the anime series Gundam Double Zeta ZZ which Date cosplays. Date Masamune also cosplays himself in Sengoku Basara. Daniel Ashta Date has a romantic ring to it. ☺️

I have not named the girl Olivia Morgan and the 2 Yo-SD boys.

 

I love naming things! I name basically everything important to me or used a lot, from dolls, to consoles/computers, to journals! I will start thinking of names with two ideas: sounds I like together and a background story of the doll. Sometimes I name the doll before I create the story, usually that has to do with the sound of the name. Other times I will just use the story to tell me what kind of name the doll should have. I mostly use fantasy or Asian-based names when I focus on sounds, that does not work well for a daughter of a aristocrat raised in England. . . . so I would then look through baby-name sites to find a name that suits the story.

Finally, when I have created a small list of names I think might work for the doll, I spend a day or two calling the doll by the different names to see which one 'sticks' the best.