Question: How did you come up with your doll's name?

I have a bit of a thing for names, so one of my favourite parts about creating a doll's character is choosing the name. Nowadays I have a list of names that I really like on my phone. I add to it whenever I see/hear a name that I like. When it comes to naming my dolls, I go to the list and pick one that fits or that I like the most.

Out of my current dolls, Molly's name was one I'd had in mind for a while. I had a character of the same name in a story I used to write (since abandoned) and Molly the doll was vaguely based off that character. Imogen was also a character from the same story. I took the name from my favourite musician at the time (Imogen Heap). Fionnuala's name came from a girl I used to go horse riding with a long time ago. I just like the name because it's unusual and (I think) really cute

 

I insisted that I establish a proper name for my doll before I had even ordered him. My sibling was the first to order a doll, being a Mystic Kids Cris, but hadn't named him before hand so we kept calling him Cris.
I didn't want to end up calling mine by the default name just because I wanted something else other than that. I ended up using a name generator online until I came up with one I liked.

 

A little doll I got from toysrus who was an alien was named "Una Verse". I thought it was adorable so I called my little alien Marcia "Oona"

 

I brought my doll upstairs to sit with us during dinner one night and I told my mom and Nana that I couldn't think of a good name for her. My Nana said I should call her Ginny, so she's been Ginny ever since!

 

I know I answered this thread once before but I just got a new doll so I have something to share about finding her name. "Ophelia" pops up quite a bit for name ideas but I wanted something similar. Ophelia is such an awesome name but a little too awesome. So I Googled "names like Ophelia". I got this website here. "Lilibeth", "Venus", and one or two others popped out at me. I posted to a FB group with my name ideas and everyone loved Lilibeth, and so I chose that

I'll need to find a last name for her soon.

 

I love names. I name everything. Even inanimate objects. My lamp's name is Beatrice. (I prefer to think of it as 'quirky' ) Names are a big deal for me. With Amelia I knew I wanted her name to be Millie. I volunteer at the SPCA and my favorite cat's name is Millie. But I wanted her to have a full name, so I thought about what it could be (Mildred, Amelia, Millicent) and picked my favorite.
She's my only BJD. I have three Pullips, though. I named then Nikki Shilo (Nicole Kidman is my favorite actress and Shilo was my favorite childhood book), Tailah Chai (The main character in my favorite book's name is Tally-wah. I wanted something a little more real sounding than that though. and I work at a coffee shop so Chai Tea) and Deanna Satine (She was a gift from a friend who's first name started with D and middle name started with S. I've always loved the name Deanna and Satine is the main character in my favorite movie) so they all seemed to fit. Mostly my pets are named because of something, too. my rabbit Breve was named because he's creamy white and, again with the coffee shop, the word breve means "with cream". When we adopted our cat Vivian her name was VaVaVoom. It suited her, but it was a stupid name ;-p so we stuck with Vivian because it was sort of similar. And our cat Mimmo's approximate birthday was the day my husband and I let for our honeymoon to Italy, so we named him after our tour guide. Our other two pets (Digit and Oakley) were just names that I always thought would be cute pet names and when we adopted them we thought they suited them.

 

My first doll (MNF Shushu) just had her name. As soon as I saw her it popped into my head.

For my second (Bisou Ai Bonbon), I had a dream about her and ended up with two names and two characters. When I got her home she took the name from one and the personality of the other.

My third I wanted a slightly out there name that could easily have a short nickname, so when I came up with the nickname I just looked up words that started with the same letter until I found something I liked that fit.

And finally, for my fourth, I wanted something specifically Spanish/Italian, but also something that was easy to shorten, so I looked through lists of traditional baby names until I found one I liked. Unfortunately it didn't shorten well... so it became a middle name and I picked a different first name.

 

My KidDelf girl will be here next month. and I am pretty sure her name will be Morgandy (little one from the edge of the sea) after the first BJD I ever held (at an anime convention). Although I will be 100% sure when I look at her.

 

Names just tend to pop into my head! Only doll I've had trouble with is an off topic doll, every other doll has just had their name come to me. It's the ones I struggle with naming that I don't always keep.

 

Most of mine their names become apparent as I get to know them - sometimes it takes a LONG time. Elfie was never really named. She took her own sweet time withotu lettign me know what name she'd answer to so I was referring to her as "my elfie girl" sfor so long that it stuck and she's Elfie.

A few had names beforehand - My Naarae is named after the fellow listmember who persuaded me to stop drooling over eveyr Narae picture that came up and buy one, Edith's name I knew from the very start.

Most of my gang only have one name - I only have one name myself and haven't had any reason to give any of them a surname. I say "most! of them because one answers to a different name when she's in her full-elf persona, but that's not a surname, it's one name of the other depending what size of ears she's deoisplaing at the time.

Teddy

 

My Ophelia adopted her name off a tombstone in front of which she was once posing. Very Rozz Williams.
I'm planning on an elf-eared boy sometime in the future who will be Oberon, after the character in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

 

I was looking at BJDs whilst I was playing the videogame 'Eternal Sonata' and it inspired me to name all of my BJDs as a collective after musical terms. I also was reading Grand Guinol Orchestra, which is BJD related. So I named my first dolls Claves and Lucille.
Later came Arpeggio and Falsetto, and so on.

I've since changed my troops theme to my favourite books, I currently have Wonderland, Sherlock Holmes and Manga themed groups.

No doubt I'll mix it up again xD

 

I used some characters in animations to name my dolls ......

 

Pond's sculpt name is 'Amy'. I was going to call her Georgie, but when she arrived, it didn't fit. 'Pond' came to me out of the blue when I was dressing her, but it took me over a week to realise the connection to 'Amy' despite me being a massive Doctor Who fan.

Dean is named after the character from Supernatural, as his character shares a lot of his traits. Plus, I wanted a simple, one syllable, masculine name. Again, it just popped into my head as I dressed him.

 

Ooops, I'd already commented.


Teddy

 

I have such a hard time naming my dolls. I use names that I would've named my child if I had another one. But alas they never stick and I have renamed them several times. I feel bad as I think they deserve names but for some reason I'm too indecisive and fickle.

 

There are lots of ways I use to come up with a name.

For my elves, I use a Tolkien elf name that is close in sound to the sculpt name.

I have to like the sound of the name and the meaning of the name.

Elf El = Eluren (a twin, Tolkien elf name)
Elf El Vampire = Elureth (the other twin)

I have some tiny elves named after fairy names from Shakespeare, because I like Shakespeare, like I like Tolkien.

Some other elves are named after plants and flowers and herbs, because elves seem related to nature, in my mind.

Cyndy 2 = Tsukiko (Cynthia means something moon-related, Tsuki is moon-related, ko is just "little", the name sounds similar to the sculpt and she's made in Japan, so a Japanese name would be good)

Soom Sard = Araqiel (looked at other jewel/mineral names, but decided on a fallen angel/demon name, since he's got hooves and horns)

Soom Euclase = Sokaris (he as bird-talon feet and sort of Egyptian style, so I found an Egyptian hawk god name for him)

I'm waiting for a
Soom Shale centaur = Hyacinth (he's going to have a blue body, so I was looking at blue names and Hyacinths can be a blue flower, it is also a Greek mythological name and centaurs are in Greek mythology, and he can have a flowery name because he's pretty much genderless, so a really macho-butch-manly name wouldn't really work)

I try to just think of some way to connect a name with the doll...

and some dolls have last and middle names and some don't. If they are humans and have more of a story, they will have three names... chosen by meanings and ethnicity and fitting for the character.

Some of my other dolls have first and last names, or nicknames or titles. It really depends on the doll and the character. (although I don't shell characters... I will make my dolls into their own characters sometimes...)

I love names!

 

My first doll, Alice, looked like Alice in Wonderland on her sales page. She didn't look like Alice when I got her, but I kept the name anyway. Lyria was a name I used for a character in Dragon Age. Danifae, my Drow elf is named after a Drow in R.A. Salvatore's War of the Spider Queen series. Cassie, I wanted to make her like Cassie Hack from Hack/Slash but never did but she stayed Cassie. Penny I got the idea from Big Bang Theory...she's blonde so that's about the only similarity lol. Jack was one of my favorite characters from Mass Effect and the whole thing of a girl with a guy named worked for me. Sydney "Syd" was named just b/c I bought her from a lady in Australia.

Sometimes I make a list of all my girls and try to come up with a name that starts with a letter that I haven't used yet. Kind of how Zoey got her name. I tend to come up with names before they get home. And I've found that giving dolls names is like test driving a car. If you do it...you're really really really going to want it.

 

Picking out a name for my doll is one of my favorite parts! Here are how several of my dolls got their names:

Astraeus (Soom Heliot): From Greek mythology, the Titan god of dusk/nightfall. His faceup and blushing was done to look like the night sky, which he embodies.
Peter (Soom Monzo): Name means "stone" or "rock", used it since he is a gargoyle.
Michael Allison Abney (Dollshe Saint): Name chosen out of irony, he is a vampire but his given name Michael when he was human after the archangel Michael. I met someone with the name Michael Allison, and I liked how the name flowed, so that's how his middle name came about. Abney is an older surname that I used in an attempt to distinguish him from the current time period.

If I hear a name I like (or a first/last name combination that sounds good together), I write it down in case I want to use it later. I also search baby names if I want a specific meaning behind the name or if I want the name to start with a certain letter.

That's my general thought process when it comes to naming my dolls

 

Ardese was an online name that I made up quite some time ago. It was a combination of the first two letters in another online name that I had that was made of three words.

Shu, my little boy that's on the way, is a take on my cat's name, Sho. When I saw Pipos Lloyd, I wanted to model him after my cat kind of like a homage to him, I guess? But I thought having two Shos in the house might feel a bit weird, so I decided to call my doll Shu.

For the dolls I definitely plan on having/making, Merchant and Ollo are based off of characters from old D&D games. Merchant was, well, a merchant and Ollo was an android, who's product number was 0110, so Merchant named him Ollo for short. Seanan, Merchant's real name, was given to him by one of my friend's characters because he didn't want to call him Merchant anymore. Lol.