Naming your dolls

{laugh!} My husband has been responsible for the names some of my poor (off topic) dolls ended up with over the years, but that's why "Scary Mary" and "Dolly One-Leg" are among those names... (No, she doesn't just have one leg, she has two - you had to be there - She's the leader of all my dolls and stuffies, and had a fan-following of her own among historical reenactors for a while).

Teddy

 

im so bad at naming things, i can whip up a full OC in 5 minutes aside from the name. my Mnf mirka went by Nameless for a while thats how bad i am at names lol

 

Some of my dolls are characters from a RPG my best friend and I did years ago, as well as some of my D&D characters, so their names were foreordained. My other dolls generally tell me their names. Sometimes it takes a while. And one of them actually insisted on a rename not too long ago.

 

Since I'm planning on making my OCs to doll form, they are based off of them. I am quite bad at naming characters and sometimes look online at a list of names to choose from. It's what I actually did with some of my OCs at least.

 

l just trend to go with what is linked to the myth/ect

like my fairy queen character name is stolen from the play and such

 

I usually have somewhat of a hard time with doll names.

Usually, i try to make it relevant to their story and their country of origin, though. So it ends up being a somewhat classic name for the country they're from.

But it has to "sound", and "feel" right. So it's sometimes tough.

I usually do some research online, and ask people who might know more about my doll's "country" or the fantasy theme it may be based on.

 

I keep the sculpt names most of the time. Sometimes they get a shortened version or variation of the sculpt name. I only have a small amount of dolls that I changed completely.

I found the name Raven Valentine (Ringdoll Moyu) on a tomb in St. Louis Cemetery NO. 1 in New Orleans when I used to live there. The name always stuck with me, because it's a pretty awesome name. When I saw the doll, I had to get him, and I knew I had to give him that name.

I have two ⅙ Dollzone twins Domino (Dollzone Daomiao) and Solitaire (Dollzone Yo-Carter) The ended up being named after games because I already had a Dollzone Carter named 'Carter' only my little Yo-Carter is a winking one - so Solitaire one eye, and Domino seamed to complement that and is close to Daomiao.

Trinity got his name because I was only going to have three 70cm+ dolls and he was the third one. The only three 70cm+ dolls didn't last, but he kept the name.

Luna got her name because Loong Soul Wei Yue Yan Dan was a Lunar event doll and Yue means Moon.

Otherwise unless the doll just screams their name at me, the sculpt names are just as good of a name as any other name.

 

My very favorite doll is named for my grandpa. I have a few with 'regular/plain' western names, a couple for favorite fandoms/characters, a set of my girls are named for historical women. One of my SDs got his from a joke I made about him before he arrived, and several of the kiddos are named for favorite songs.

Then there's the dolls that just yell their name at me before or after they arrive & I can't tell u where those come from bc it won't be something I was thinking to name them at all

But I do keep a running list of interesting/nice sounding ones that I hear or run across to pull from if needed.

 

It's a mix for me...
Some (like Tyran, Ennara, Kevin, Talen, and Serafina) were named after existing RPG characters from a former campaign that became a series of stories.

Some (Zenobia, Ariadne, Cordillia) were named for newer characters that joined the cast and then were shelled.

Some have names with meaning.
Largo was named after a Bond villain
Pascal from a character in the old Beauty and the Beast TV series
Huckleberry from the line Val Kilmer would say in Tombstone
Waldo after Where's Waldo because his shipping went off the reservation for almost 2 weeks
Sir Hissalots is a reference to a certain early rapper
Hammy Sagar is a reference to singer Sammy Hagar... but he's a pig boy, so...
Brinks is in reference to one of my favorite female singers; Maria Brink
etc.

The rest are mostly just names I really liked or made up on the fly (Wixxys, Frescwyn, N'Zyri, etc.)

I'm still working on names for my newest ones.

 

Honestly, since I buy a doll just for the doll itself, I just look at them and a name pops out to me from somewhere. All of my dolls have been named purely on instinct lol. So I currently have a mix of western names and Japanese names within my group. Then I get more fancy with the last names and/or middle names. It's fun to work out!

 

I'm a long-time tabletop RPG player and GM... Naming things is an old and hard-won skill.

Most of my crew are the resin avatars of tabletop characters and NPCs, or roleplayed MMO toons, so in a sense the naming work for them was already done. I knew who they were going to be before I got them.

Others, though, are characters specific to the dolls only and *don't* have RPG counterparts (Most of the Celestial Bureaucracy and Turtle House gang, the Montanari's modern magi-), and for that bunch I tend to pick names after they've arrived and I've had some time to tinker around with them. If they're part of a group with a "theme" coming up with a name is a little easier... All five of Gaia's godbeasts have bird names, for instance (Crow, Falcon, Kingfisher, etc) while all of the staff of the Division of Endings went Egyptian (Anubis, Ma'at, Eset and so on-)... But otherwise, I just try out different ideas and see what fits. Sometimes that results in something very "normal" (I'm looking at you Daniel.) and sometimes it doesn't. (*pats Cloud Mirror on the head*)

 

I have a really hard time naming my babies. Some will instantly tell me their name and others came very slowly. My holy grail doll for 11 years still remain nameless. We just cannot came up with a name that suits her. I wanted a perfect name for her, she is my holy grail after all.

 

I'm struggling with names for my dolls lately. For some reasons they prefer names like: "maleństwo" (the tiny one) or "Mroczny pan" (The dark Lord), or "podgrzybek" (bolete) XD

 

I love naming dolls, and mine have gone through a few different names since I'm more likely to remake their character than sell the doll.

Bobobie Pandora: Agent 'M' Oakland. M started with two different names, one was Marah (cause that was my main RP character), and then Emily because I wanted a high school character to dress up and build a story around. So her name was Emily Miller an American foreign exchange student who learns about Japanese culture through her story. While I liked the character, the story didn't last so I gave Pandora a new character, which is my Hellboy OC. 'M''s real name is redacted because it's embarrassing, her parents were hippies who thought naming their child Mystical Moonbeam was a great idea. I gave her the last name Oakland because the Americanized German name fits her backstory.

Asleep Ediolon Milkshake: Yoko. Yoko was from Emily's story and was the daughter of the family Emily was staying with. I named her Yoko after a friend I had from Japan and the character hasn't changed since she's my troublemaker.

DollFamily H DuanYu: Shin. Shin is also from the Emily story and I picked the name because I was obsessed with the Manga Gokusen and the male lead's name was Shin.

Illusion Spirit Minos: Quin. Quin has gone through a few changes like M. He was originally known as 'The Shrine Spirit' because he was part of Emily's story. When that scenario lost my interest I started to look at the doll and wonder what other character he could fit. Quin came from a world of warcraft roleplay where one of my monster player characters had an adopted son. I picked the name Quin out of thin air because the character was meant to be nameless... And now he's a fixed feature in all of my stories. I'm debating about changing his name as well again since I want to give my dolls a unified story again, so I'll have to play around. He might stay Quin, just be in the modern day dealing with Yoko, Shin, and M can be the paranormal agent keeping tabs on people.

Most of my stuff comes from the stuff I write, and my best advice is to do one of two things. If it's a fantasy character, speak gibberish and then google the stuff you make to make sure it's not offensive in another language. Two, think about the character's background. Are their parents 'normies' who would name their kids boring names (Like Emily), or are they different than typical society and name their kids something strange (Like poor M). Using census records I look up when they could be born and then ask how original the parents are with naming their kid. At least that's how I do it in my writing.

 

I named my MiniFee Hwayu "Constance" because I felt like an elegant and classic name would suit her. There's also the pun being that she's immortal because she's a vampire, thus the "Constance" of her existence.

 

When I name things, I tend to just go with what sounds nice and seems to fit the character. Sometimes I'll look at the actual meaning of names too. To get inspired I usually scroll for hours on those baby name websites lol

 

My Zach was named before I got him as he's an OC I love dearly and was designed with said OC in mind (he's a Makie!)

My little Hujoo Freya needed something sweet and cute like her, so I trawled baby name sites until I found "Yukiko" after searching for names meaning "white" (cuz she's the white version. I'm original) and she became "Child of the Snow" in Korean (since she was "born" there!)

Doll!Sans has been giving me trouble though
I made a little shortlist of favourite names but none of them really suited him.
I called him "Dominic" for a while and liked it a lot, but then some UK politician was in the news for being a twat and of course, his name is Dominic. So that was out.
I'd been trawling through baby name websites, but didn't see anything I liked. I tried font names as a nod to Sans but the only one I thought might be nice (Roman) just... wasn't his name. Fantasy name generators just made me laugh, names of bones were a no (some of those would be considered doll abuse! ) my old Undertale OC name was a simple "nope" and names from other sources were just meh.

Until the other day, he was back to being called Doll!Sans and I'd resigned myself to waiting until he arrived to "tell" me his name.
And then, clicking around on NASA's website, I stumbled over a list of explorer ships and was proverbially smacked over the head with one that is - for now - perfect for my little guy.

So he's "Scout" until further notice and I love it

 

Generally speaking, I only come up with names when I put up DOA profiles for them!

I'm really bad at naming dolls but have no trouble with anything else inanimate in my life.

 

Whenever I name my dolls, the name normally comes to me after I look at the doll for the first time. This has happened multiple times, basically every time I get a new doll. Sometimes I keep the name of the sculpt because it fits the doll or I like the name. Examples are Force (FallinDoll Force Fox), Charlotte (Pipos Charlotte III 2021), and Rudy (Pipos Deer Rudy (27cm)).

 

When I was thinking about what to name my first doll, the word Liquidâmbar (sweetgum) came to mind because of her sculpt name (Amber). I wasn't too sure at first, but it stuck in my mind, so I took it.
As for my second doll, I thought of Rosmaninho (rosemary), because of her body's sculpt name (Roze). Again, it stuck and I decided to keep it.

And that became my naming convention. I've decided to name all of my dolls after Portuguese words for various flora, but not necessarily after their sculpts - I try to think of a word that resembles them in some way or that I think would make a nice name.