Naming your dolls

Hmmm, among my six dorries, three of them (Reaiah, Samael, Cephere) were easy to name since they are based from original characters I used to RP in the heydays of Yahoo!Groups and want them to come to life as BJD's . The other three who were conceived as BJD's first (Eremiel, Hisame, Bian Hua) were more of a challenge, mostly because I want the their names to match the characters I created for them.

 

The best way I’ve found a name so far is for my Luts boy. I was at a store looking at all the plushies and saw a dragon plushie named Sebastrial and knew I had to steal it for him XD

 

I'm very bad at names, which made me write up a list of things to consider when naming dolls and characters:

1: Culture. Depending on where your doll/character was born and raised, they might have a name unique to that country, language and in some cases, religion.

2: Influences. If your character is inspired by, say, a TV show or book, you can subtly take the first name from one character and the surname from another.

3: Mythology. Since these are dolls and not children, you can name a character something like Artemis, Kaguya, Isolde or Anubis without worrying about teachers giving your kid's name a double-take.

4: Symbolism. Fair maidens often have flower names, like Jasmine, Lily, Rose. Is your character ambitious? Maybe name them after a star, like Sirius, Vega, Antares, Electra. (But do note that this particular one overlaps with Greek mythology!) Is your character a free spirit? Name them after a bird, like Raven, Sparrow and other things similar.

5: Mash names together. But do so with moderation, or they can sound really awkward. Catrina and Serena can become Carena and so on.

6: Swap out letters. The GRRM way of doing things, and whose character I'll use as examples: Jane becomes Jeyne, Peter into Petyr and more.

7: Heritage. Are your dolls related? Maybe the doll's character was named after an ancestor, like their grandmother or their father. Or maybe they have a sibling whose name sounds similar to theirs, like Stan and Dan.

8: People you know. You can ask a friend if they're cool with you having a doll named after them. Some might think that the gesture is very sweet.

9: Hobbies, yours or theirs. As a fan of art, you can name them Vincent from Van Gogh. A ballet fan? Odette from Swan Lake.

10: Name generators. Most famously fantasynamegenerators.com which is so good that I'm at a loss for words. There's also the random generator on behindthename.com which is one of the most accurate name meaning sites.

And of course, you can mix all of the above, but preferably not at once as it might become a bit of a messy name...
If I forgot something, feel free to add! I hope this list helps anyone skimming the thread for inspiration.

 

I chose the name of my dolls as soon as I got them. However, they use to end up with another one since I see that the first name does not suit completely their personality or de Oc so never ask me for the name of my dolls when they arrive but some months later (?)

 

It's very hard to me to find names that i reallyyy love, but once i hear a cool name it stays in my head for a while... Like, i named my OC Marshall after the amplifiers brand XD, or I usually look in Google for "dark/gothic names"

 

I've thought of naming one doll a great name I love a lot, which is also the name of a friend I'm no longer in touch with due to life and time. I have great memories of her and it wouldn't bother me to be reminded of the actual person behind the name. I think it would suit the cheery and outgoing tomboy character I have in mind. But I'm not sure. I generally avoid names I might associate to real people.

On the other hand I really can't find any other names that click the same way. I know I wouldn't like obtuse or hard to pronounce names for my own dolls, or obscure variations of a common name. But I have a lot of IRL people who bear these common names so it's hard. I can't name a doll Rose even though I love the name (I love roses like few other things), cause I know dozens and I'm inevitably going to be reminded of someone and that will spoil the doll (weird I know).

Same goes for characters in media. Whether I like the source or not, if the name reminds me of a character from a show or something else I have to scrap it.

 

Everyone has such beautiful stories and meaning for their doll's names. Many of them are quite moving!

As for me, I have a set of four, four sisters and I like the idea of staying with that four theme. So my girls are named after the four seasons! Midori for Spring, Momoki for Summer, Momiji for Fall, and Miyuki for Winter. And I chose Japanese names because that's the origin of my doll's manufacturer. Pretty simple and not too special.

 

Name is one of the first things that I think of when creating a doll OC (or any type of OC I make, really). Knowing it helps me shape the rest of the character personality. Not knowing it feels very uncomfortable, like major unfinished business, so I try to stick a name on a doll ASAP after I've decided to buy it.

My earlier dolls were named whatever sounded nice to me - some made-up names, some real-world names/words. I'm a collector of words and keep lists of them, so I always have something to refer to for inspiration. Nowadays I don't make up names that much, I prefer to draw inspiration from real-world languages.

My current dolls are an ensemble cast in a defined setting. I always have rules for names (it comes from having done a lot of world-building/con-worlding in the past), and the rules for the doll characters are: they need a name that references a bird (I assign a bird type to each character), and a name that references some virtue/blessing (since they're angel characters). I haven't always stuck to these rules, but they help me narrow down choices, and ensures everyone has more-or-less harmonious names, even if they're from different languages.

My weird obsession is making sure that every name in the ensemble cast starts with a different letter of the alphabet. I don't know why, but reusing a starting letter always makes me squirm inside! I've disregarded suitable names because the starting letter has already been claimed by another character, luckily I've been able to find nice alternatives.

I wrote about my dolls' name origins in this BJD games thread!