Naming your dolls

I think usually I come up with the names passively while considering the doll character after arrival, sometimes look for inspiration online usually by searching sequences of letters or sounds because that's pretty much what I require, a certain kind of sound feel... Sometimes I ask friends/ community for suggestions just because it's fun and it will either give me lots of totally new ideas that I just find interesting or I'll be suggested something I actually like enough to use (and it helps me break a bit from my typical preferences).

 

My army of dolls, have a lot of different reasons for names. Some are my own personal characters from RPGs or writing projects. Some are named for characters from comic books, anime, movies, or books that I loved so much I wanted to make dolls into them. And some are named just cuz I really loved the meaning of a name, or a word. Oh and in the case of my first and only Dollfie Dream I loved the Gorillaz song Dare, and went Dare would be a good doll name so named my second doll in this hobby that. Dare by the by is the doll in my avatar here. (I keep meaning to change my avi to a photo of my doll Tipp to match my forum name, but Dare's pic is still in use so guess she's too special to replace now XD)

 

The dolls I'm currently waiting on are being shelled into some of my OCs and two TV shows I really like. My current two dolls, I didn't have names planned for when I bought them. I made a list of a few characters in media I like and also names of characters that two actors I like have played. When each of the dolls came and had their wig on and eyes in, I looked at the list and went over which ones fit the most before picking their name. My first doll, Emiel, ended up being named after Regis from The Witcher, which sounded right and was fitting since their teeth remind me a bit of a vampire's. Then my second doll, Ariel, got his name from the character from The Tempest. His wig ended up reminding me the costume Colin Morgan wore when he played Ariel. I'm probably going to use the same method after the dolls I'm waiting on.

 

I definitely wait for them to arrive before I start the process. I tend to opt for more fantastical sounding names if I can. I want names far removed from modern times if feasible.

 

On rare occasionas I keep the sculpt name because I like it and it seems to suit the doll, but not often.

Sometimes I know the name immediately, sometimes it takes a little while to get to knwo the dolla nd figure out what their name shoudl be, sometimes it takes forever, sometimes it doesn't happen at all.

One of my first BJD never got formally named. I referred to her as "my elfie girl" for so long that Elfie became her name by dint of usage. Her tin brother, however, was Bracken right from the start.

I tend to like longer, les common names that I then, invariably use the shortened version of. I was interested in Victorian and Edwardian life as child and I guesss I was influencesd by some of the names children were given back then. My BJD's who are all members of the same Victorian family are (from eldest down to youngest in the family):

Sera (Serendipitous)
Phige (Ephigenia)
Jean-Claude
Edith
Nesta (Clytemnestra)
Cressida
Hannah
Alphie (Alphonse)
Bobbin (Roberto)
Meri (Meriol)
Elfie
Bracken
Nettle (sculpt name)
Maudie (Maud - lengthened form used instead of shorter)
Arin (sculpt name)
Littla Marina
Lottie (Charlotte)
Charlie (Charles)
Raphael (Sculpt name)

Occasionally, a name just suggests itself to me - my little Kaye Wiggs Sage is a woodsprite and her name, Willowbark, just popped into my head on my wlk back to work after lunch one day.

Some names I use more thn once among my dolls (I have lots of non-BJD dolls too) , such as Delphinium/Phinnie, Rebecca/Becca, and Maud/Maudie whihc probably indicates that i like those names, or might just be a lack of imagination on my part.

Teddy

Teddy

 

I like long and unpronounceable names . I usually pick them from books, mythologies and so on. (I have of a soft spot for fantasy novels). For my yokai family I look for names on an online japanese dictionary and I choose it when I both like the meaning and the sound of a word.
Sometimes I can use short and common names. It depends of what the doll inspired me.

 

Haha. Hmmm...it depends. Sometimes, it just happens naturally. Like, with my first doll, I came up with "Marie" and my then boyfriend/now husband said that he was thinking that name too so it clicked. But then there are dolls where I still am trying to figure out their names years later. Names range from traditional American/English, to Scottish/Irish/Gaelic, to Hebrew, to Japanese, to Korean, etc. Sometimes, the original, default name of the doll just sticks and it's hard to give it a new name as we like the original so much. I guess it's somewhere between naming a pet or a child? Hahahaha.

I have a friend that has a character in mind and creates a doll to fit that character. Other times, she tries to replicate an existing character from a series or game she and her husband like.

The funny thing is, I like "ordinary" names as my own name is extremely long and exotic (I'm the only one in the world with my name). My husband on the other hand has a very common name (I think in the millions) and he loves more exotic names. So it's interesting seeing that when it comes to our doll naming tendencies.

 

Some of my dolls are meant to be doll versions or various AU versions of the doll versions of certain characters from anime/manga/games, so they have the same names as those characters or variations of those characters’ names. I also often roleplay (RP) as these characters.

Then there are those that are the OC children of the above and their names usually come about from discussions with my RP partners.

There are also those that I call by their sculpt names and some that are nameless as I haven’t thought of characters or names for those yet. They are usually the dolls that I got because I like the way they look, and not the dolls that I got to represent certain characters. I do sometimes end up using them to shell new characters I’ve added to my RP list though.

Lastly, there are some that will probably remain nameless (mostly off-topic dolls) because they are just part of my collection and are mostly treated as display pieces.

 

All of my dolls are OCs from my stories so they had names before they even arrived.

 

All of my dolls are representative of characters from my screenplays and other writing projects, excluding Taylor, who is a general muse and gets to play many different roles. Each name relates to their story and personality, and frequently come off as ironic/coincidental i.e. Samira, a vampire, which translates to something like "evening companion", or "conversing into the night". Chronic overthinker sort of nonsense, really.

 

Mine have been all over the place. Currently I have 3 categories for naming my dolls, but like those in past they have a theme based on what company or artist they came from. Irrealdolls are all given surnames as their first names. I have Parker and Madison. The anthros are all regardless of company are named after characters from Critical Role Campaign Two. I have Caleb, Yasha and Jester so far. I had Bishonen House MSD guys and they all had human names like Eddie and Logan.

 

some of my dolls have names that have just stuck with me for many years, through many of my characters that have changed shape a million times. so my doll names are all over the place, dragged through many phases of my life. or they’re names from books or movies or shows that mean a lot to me. i don’t really look for a name or try to research. if i find one, i just find one! if i don’t then my doll is nameless till then! there’s no method to it. my delf miyu i’ve had since 2020 and i still cannot settle on a name, nothing has fit right so far.

 

I have a number of ways how name come to be. Either they "feel right" for the character ,it's a name I heard somewhere that I like ,its a name I already have for my character in a game or it's an "obvious" name. Current dolls I have :

-Echo ( I just really liked the name)
-Coco ( fox pet doll, stark white like the inside of a coconut)
-Coal ( dragon pet doll)
-Coral ( sea dragon/ sea horse pet doll)

All these pet dolls are Echos pets, I also just really liked how all their names sound together and were discriptive in some way.

I also have Kabocha , which means pumpkin in Japanese, for my magical girl with a pumpkin head

I also have Linnarea , which is one of my characters in elder scrolls online. She's an Altmer (high elf) . I just went through a list of altmer names and came up with something that sounds like it makes sense in their culture and wasn't taken already

 

I currently only five of my dolls named for sure. Two of which were based on my fantasy character couple (Khavien and Riana). And one was named because the theme of the doll just evolved during customizing and it was inspired by it (Snowdrop the baby centaur). And two Pipos cheese mice that are a mother and baby themed after food (Missus Mossrose the melon mouse, and Baby Reeses the peanut-butter and chocolate mouse)

And because two of my doll heads share a body, those heads also have a name tagged on them, depending on who's active. (Lady Amaya from Dragon Prince, and Raven, another OC)

The rest of my dolls are currently under a work-in-progress state, so their names will likely be something inspired by the finished project.

Toki is the only doll that kept his company name because I like it and it suits the little guy.

 

You know, honestly? Sometimes I’m not sure where the seed for a name comes from. It’s a bit like asking a writer where they get their ideas and it’s like, “From… my brain?”

I have shelled characters before, but I find the process for naming them isn’t really that much different. I get an impression, sometimes a vague idea of ethnicity like “this lady is Irish” or “this one is Japanese” and either something comes to me and feels right or I spend time on a baby names website narrowing down options. A lot of it tends to coincide with wherever what I’m watching at the time comes from, because I get attached to tropes and sort of express my love for them through dolls.

My last doll got named after a scientist on a historical forensics show I was watching.

 

for me it depends on if I know I'm shelling a character (or deciding to at least), otherwise it's a matter of picking a name i feel fits after they arrive. Sometimes if I'm having trouble with the second, I'll look at a name list and test out names. For one or two of my dolls I really loved their sculpt names (Volks Nono and FL Miwa), but I also felt that them having names from me would be very special especially as I start to find pieces for them that bring out their individual characters. So I ended up going with names that resembled them. Nono really needed a name with repeating syllables like that, and I love the name Momoko anyway, so her full name is Momoko and I call her Momo for short hehe. Miwa really fits an 'M' name, and something feminine. Mariah fits the bill in my opinion!

Overwhelmingly most of my dolls are shelled characters I've already named, but when I received my FL Rendia she really felt ethereal and sublime, and I had her dressed in drapey clothing. I was also doing a paper on the concept of Arcadia in various art movements in history....So Arcadia kind of stuck! (Her nickname's Cadie)

 

with my dolls, their names just come to me when they're ready! I used to have a semi-theme where no dolls could have names starting with the same letter (as an attempt to limit my collection) but that's more or less fallen off. some of my dolls have pointedly chosen to have no names at all, in the traditional sense! (like stranger and the maiden!) but generally, I'll know the right name when I hear it. could be a name from mythology, or a standard name I liked the sound of, or a name where I've looked up a specific meaning (I love behindthename's theme section for this!)

 

Oh the angst of naming dolls! I fret over it so much! It is very important to me that each doll’s character be properly represented by the perfect name, and I’ll work very hard at it until I find it. My inspiration can come from absolutely anywhere really…it’s only important that it suit the essence of who or what they are. And considering my collection is an OC grouping of extremely varied fantasy types (sort of like those you’d meet on a walk through Tim Burton’s “Alice”) my naming practices are equally varied. And it doesn’t matter if it makes sense to anyone else but me, because it’s my fantasy after all! I wanted a French sounding name for my antique french automaton character…so I named her Aubergine because that’s the color of her hair, which made it french in a quirky way. My anthro cat (who loves wearing kimonos) I named simply Neko-chan, an endearing term for cat in Japanese. And I seem to have a thing for the name Rose because I have several of them…Bohemia Rose, Second-hand Rose, Chinoiserie Rose, PrimRose and PansyRose. My angel boy protects the neighborhood, so I named him Barrio (Spanish for neighborhood.) Birdie is a very young gargoyle who was found by a little old lady who can’t see very well and is always misplacing her glasses, so she thinks she’s some sort of a very colorful parakeet. You get the idea.

And it can take me a long time to find the right name too. I’ll keep trying out names for them and then change them once a more fitting one finally pops into my head. Even if I’ve been using the name for a very long time, if I stumble upon the perfect one that takes my character to the next level, I won’t hesitate to change it. This happened just last week as a matter of fact. I have a Doll Chateau SD, and I dearly love her sculpt, but her character wasn’t quite sticking for me. I’ve had her for two years now, and I’ve used multiple names for her, but her character has never developed beyond a very basic concept and I just couldn’t figure out why. She’s a very lovely and fancy sculpt with tremendous detail, so I’ve always used sleek and stylish wigs on her. But last week I was working with one of those wild and uncontrollable Tibetan mohair wigs, and as a lark I put it on her just to test the fit…and voila! Her character just immediately started unfolding before me. It was one of those truly magical doll moments. I loved the juxtaposition of the fancy sculpt with the wild unruly wig, and character details just started spilling out all over the place for me. So I instantly realized this was who she was always meant to be and named her Tatters.

 

I have a hard time with names. Sometimes I look at a doll and a name just comes to me out of the blue that works, but usually I struggle. I like a lot of names and will try those out on the doll and if none really suit the doll I use the baby name genie lol
I just sort through the genie while looking at the doll until a name pops up that I feel fits.
Also, sometimes I will go through name lists online. I am very unoriginal haha