Naming your dolls

Naming my girls is one of my favorite and least favorite parts. While looking for names and picking them is fun, I am such an outlandish perfectionist that I can never just pick one and often go back on my decisions..
Other than that, I usually use online name generators and try to explore names from different countries and even pre-existing characters. I have a thing for short and sweet names- usually 2-3 syllables. I always have to wait for them to get their faceup before I can decide!

 

I say that my characters live in my head and present themselves when they feel confortable to, so I don't really have a method to name my BJDs (they are representations of the characters of my books and comics), I just... know how they are named?

There were times when I gave my dolls names I like, but these were the dolls that I ended up selling because I couldn't bond with them. I also have dolls with names that are not specifically my favorites, but I love them to pieces cause we don't usually choose the names of the ones we love, right?

Well, that's how my mind works hahahaha

 

For inspiration, I use favorite actor names, characters from books, movies or tv shows. When I get stuck, I’ll go to the Naming Woes thread and fall into the baby names rabbit hole. Some dolls go through a few names before they settle on one. Some even get first and last names. My least creative name is Luke for my Volks Black Cat Lucas - I considered calling him Lucas but felt that was just too lazy.

And then there’s my Iplehouse Rex, Dalton. My husband refers to him as Chunk Hardbody.

Sigh.

 

I come up with names first based on meaning, and then I choose the one that I think suits the doll best by the sound of it. It takes me foreeverr to name a doll though…

 

Sometimes I have an idea, and that idea sticks, but most of the time I let the names come up when the doll is complete. Turns out a floating head isn't enough to be sure. I exclude names that remind me of anything that isn't the doll (celebrities, fictional characters, people I know) as well as names that are too complicated. I prefer simple names that roll nicely on the tongue and I'll always pick the simplest variant of a name if there are multiple spellings. I also pick names that sound good in all of the languages I speak the most - they can be foreign names, but they can't feel foreign. Also I'm most likely going to shorten the name if it's a long one, so I pay attention to that as well.

 

I used to be better at naming things but these days I really struggle and like some others I can have dolls for many years and never find a name for them.
My normal method is to just see what pops into my head especially as I tend to do my own faceups so quite often the doll turns out to be completely different to the plan in my head. The influences can come from anywhere. I’m incredibly cautious about looking at baby name lists and combining ones I like now after that method ended up producing a rather rude name in a different language.

Some of the ones I currently have are:

Connor When I first gave him eyes and a wig the expression on his face reminded me of a particular character in a TV show I loved so that became his name. Not what I would have chosen but that is what he wanted.

Bailey Again named after a TV show character due do her ability to pout and give withering stares.

Penny Dreadful After watching that show I thought it would make a brilliant name for a gothy looking doll, she’s had several incarnations and will be moving into yet another as I just don’t like the particular doll she currently inhabits.

Izzy (short for Ismenia) Needed an old fashioned name and quite liked Ismenia, sold the doll who originally had it but recently gave that name to my Dollstown hybrid. The fact that the actress who kind of inspired me as she reminded of the DT sculpts is also called Izzy helped a lot.

Fern This really wasn’t where I imagined her heading name wise but it kept popping into my head each time I picked her up so Fern it is. Might change the spelling slightly though.

Tatties Had the idea of making this tiny into a rather feral, grubby looking being with streak of dirt on his face. An old Scottish saying came to mind “That’s so dirty you could grow Tatties (potatoes) in it” and so he became Tatties.

Patticake I got this name from a book I read many years ago, I think it was one of the books written by the Adamsons about their life with all the African animals (Born Free being the most well known).

Professor Cricklebeak This poor doll (DC ‘Carol’) is still in bits after many years with a half finished faceup and blush. I have the image in my head of a rather stuffy, dusty tweed wearing or maybe rather prim Edwardian dress wearing schoolmaster or mistress. The Cricklebeak part of the name was inspired by one of my parrots who was sitting softly grinding her beak, a thing parrots do when content.

Tuppence Named after my FFXIV Lalafell character Tuppence Halfpenny. It should of course be Tuppence Hae’pny (the way some regions pronounced halfpenny) but when you’re dealing with players that speak other languages sometimes region pronunciations cause confusion or you get tired of answering repeated questions. Tuppence and Halfpennies are old UK currencies no longer in circulation.

 

I don't have complex or deep meanings behind my doll's names or stories.

The Volks Four Sisters is a sculpt I've always regarded as my favorite and ultimately want to collect variations of. I also really love nature in all its forms so it was an easy transition to theme my dolls around a lifelong passion of mine. My goal is to collect four total Four Sister dolls and to interpret their styling with the nature theme by making each doll relevant to a particular season. It also works out well that there are four seasons and I'll have four total dolls planned! I picked the names because they're alliterative, stay within the nature theme, and I selected Japanese names to pay homage to the country of their origin. Their names are as follows: Midori (Green) is my Spring girl, Momoko (Peach Child) is my Summer girl, Momiji (red leaves of the Japanese maple tree) my Autumn girl, and Miyuki (Deep Snow) my Winter girl.

It's been interesting reading everyone's plans and explanations for why their chose their doll's names!

 

I love naming my dolls! I have to wait for a name that feels "right," though, otherwise I can't bond with them. The speed of naming also seems to be inversely proportional to how important the doll is to me on a personal level. Aiyu took ages to name, as she was/is my grail girl and I'm deeply invested in her working out, while Ingrid and Marcie named themselves within days.

Aiyu Naeuri - First name was pulled from KPop artist IU, as her song Jam Jam gives off a very similar vibe to the doll. Last name came from her stint as my FFXIV character, as a Raen Au Ra. Raens use very traditional Japanese names, so I picked a thematically appropriate last name for her and it's stuck!

Eden Cloudchaser - I wanted him to have a feminine-leaning unisex name that was also very fantastic/mythology-inspired. He's intended to be duplicitous and is actually quite cruel, so I thought a name that sounded gentle and/or disarming would be most appropriate to contrast his personality and behaviors.

Ingrid Michaelsen - I wanted a name that involved the letter I that makes a long "ee" sound, somewhat reminiscent of her sculpt name (Mi), while also suiting an alt/goth-esque sort of girl with an attitude. Ingrid strikes the balance between being stuffy and being effortlessly cool, imo. Michaelsen is pulled from another doll collector, as I just really liked the way it sounded with Ingrid.

Marceline "Marcie" Jean Breeland - Marcie's nickname was apparent from the moment she arrived. I wanted her to have a longer name, so "Marceline" it was. Pretty shortly thereafter, she became a bit of a country western horse girl, so I decided she needed to have both alliteration and some twang in her name. Breeland is the name of a fictional herb in Nancy Drew: Danger by Design in the tea-making puzzle that I thought sounded like it could be a name and paired well with Marcie. Jean felt like the only natural middle name choice here, even though most of my dolls don't have middle names.

Phoebe Sophia - She was named by Aiyu and Ingrid, canonically, and I particularly like the meaning of "pure" and "bright." She is sweet and well-meaning, but still very young (comparatively). No last name, as she is not human and was not "born" in any traditional sense, though she may take Aiyu or Ingrid's names (or a portmanteau of the two) in the future.

Khadija - I don't have a good backstory for Khadija's name! It's a name I like very much and is also very old, which is suiting for an ageless vampire to steal from a dead lover, which is a character detail I took from Pisha in Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines. Khadija's true name is unknown, even to me, and I get the distinct impression she prefers it that way. After all, in my universe, names have power, and Khadija is nothing if not a bit of a control freak over her domain.

Wilhelmina "Mina" - "Light of all lights" is a fitting name meaning for my witch. She is intentionally named after Mina in Bram Stoker's Dracula! She also has two sisters named Virginia and Sylvia, all of whom were given "old," classic-sounding, distinctly literary names. Some of their collective character arc is based on the True Fear: Forsaken Souls game trilogy if the premise had been taken in a different direction. I want to give her a last name at some point, but I'd need her a bit closer to completion before that will happen!

Dionysus "Nysus" - Surprisingly not named after the Greek god of festivities and wine, he's named after a character in a space horror novel that I really enjoyed last year. Similarly to Mina, I want to give him a last name, but he's still in the very early stages of development and I need more time to ponder and play with him before I can.

 

Like pretty much the rest of way I do this hobby, it's a hodge-podge disaster lmao. Some of them just pop into my head when I have them in hand (like Nobuyuki and Salem), some of them are chosen for the meaning - for example, Koray (Ember Moon) or Suvi (Summer in Finnish as a nod to her creator, Summerbird). Sometimes they're inspired by another doll they go with - Arkrose and Steelbriar, Tea and Smoke, etc.

Some of them are just silly jokes, like the vampire being named Asa (healer), Nanashi (lit. "nameless") or Iris (got 'im with my irs tax refund.) There's really no rhyme or reason, it just Is What It Is. Very annoying when you aren't sure if a name isn't working because The Vibes Are Rancid or something else.

 

@Blodeuwedd
and
@Thespian

I really like how you both gave the stories behind the specific names, that kind of stuff is so fun for me to read.

My dolls don’t all have such detailed inspirations behind their names, but I’ll add mine:

Adelheid — not sure where I first heard this name, but I wanted my first doll to be named this.

Jane — named after Jane Eyre, which I had been reading either around the time I ordered or got her. I gave her dark hair and green eyes like Jane from the book. She’s definitely not a character doll, but definitely inspired by her

Lily — lilies are my favourite flower and I named by grail doll, Volks Suiseiseki, for it

Gremory — poor girl didn’t have a name for so long, like fifteen years. Originally her character was meant to be an alien, but when I got her that didn’t click. Not so long ago the name Gremory popped into my head, and it clicked, so she’s named after one of the Goetia demons now. I’m working on making her character a demoness.

Kira — I thought Kira Kira was the name of a sculpt I loved from Coco Project (a BJD company that I am not sure is around anymore) but turns out this was one of the artists. Anyway, she’s named after a BJD artist.

Hina — My most uncreative name, Hina is merely named for the sculpt she is, Volks Hinaichigo.

 

Mine were based on my writing in the past. For the incoming one I am waiting on, I will base it off of my spirit guide!