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

First I figure out what personality my dolls have, what background they come from, and who in my doll family they will be related to. Then I go through hundreds of books and websites with baby names, and find first, middle, and last names for them. Guinevere Avalon McQueen was my first SD, and she somewhat set the standard of names my dollies get; they each have to have more than one syllable, and they have to have meaning (hence I look up meanings of first and middle names to see if they work well *laughs*
After Guinevere, came Drucilla Grace McQueen, Sebastian Markais Blikktor, Miranda Avery McQueen, Morganda Irene Schwinm, Thackery Judas DeNormandy, etc..
I'm currently trying to find names for a Dollshe Bernard and a Fairyland Chloe.

 

When I look at dolls, I tend to think of a few names that suit their face. After that, I try to think of a personality for the doll, and see if the names I chose match the personality. That way, I have a list to choose from when my doll arrives. With my first doll, I asked members of my family which of the names I had chosen they thought suited him most. I find the opinions of others actually helps me decide better, whether I agree or disagree with them

 

I go down the alphabet list for the first letter of their name, and I go down from there
I realized recently I am very likely to send a doll away if their face didnt fit a name in the naming rules....the rule is important and it must not be broken
I started with L and goes down the list
so far
Licht
Mordigail
Nova (pending)
Owen (pending)

 

When I bought my first doll, a DM Paran, I thought of his name while I was saving up / he was being sent to me. I had no real idea of what his character would be since I was new to the hobby, and at first I was caught between if I wanted him to be a fantasy-inspired character (who I would have called Yarrow) or a normal boy (who would have been called Hayden or Oliver).. My friend once made the comment "narrow yarrow" and then I didn't like the name so much anymore, lol, and I decided he was going to be non-fantasy, so it was between Hayden and Oliver. I just liked Hayden better, and at the time I was browsing / following a bunch of BJD photographers on deviantART; one of these artists had an absolutely gorgeous doll who I was so inspired by and also named Hayden, and I kind of looked up to the artist, so I chose Hayden. And it stuck!

Azalea, an IslandDoll Kevin, was different, because she was originally a boy who I had planned out to be called Elliot, and who already had a storyline. But I found I couldn't bond that well with Elliot, so I changed him to a girl (the face is quite androgynous, as are most YO-SD dolls), and wanted to name her after a flower (since at the time I worked in the floral department of a grocery store). I looked at all the flowers on the displays, and the Azaleas were very pretty and I decided that would be her name. XD

My third doll, who is currently on the way, already had a set backstory and name and everything. I have a few characters in my mind that I kind of want to turn into dolls eventually, and so it was Dante's turn to be dollified next. I have sculpts planned out for some of these characters, which I did have the sculpt planned for Dante. It was just a matter of when I felt like saving up / purchasing him.

A fourth doll, just a tiny obitsu, was kind of a sporadic random purchase because I felt like it XD after I bought her I realized I'd need to give her a name, personality, and style... She still has no name, but the style is coming along well. When she shows up and I get her all dressed up like I'm imagining her, I'm sure a name will come along as well as a personality.

 

I decided that all of my dolls are going to be named after various songs from my favorite band [something I do with my characters when I'm writing as well]. My first one already has a name even though she isn't here just yet. But Hanson has a lot of different songs with different names, so I have a variety. BUT that doesn't mean that if i get one and a name just pops out at me, even if it's not Hanson related, that I won't change it to fit my plan.

My first girl is going to be Juliet, kind of a hippy/gypsy with a dash of goth and punk mixed in. I'm thinking maybe the next one may be Cecelia or Madeline.

 

I never know for sure until I have the doll here. I hadn't decided on Maya until a week after she was here. When her eyes and wig arrived is when I finally settled on it. I had a huge list of names I liked that I thought would fit the sculpt. XD Some people plan out characters before they have them, but I have a hard time with that because I'm worried I'll end up not liking the sculpt for that character, among other things.

I like the sculpt to tell me who they are, I guess.

 

I actually didn't come up with my doll's name myself.

She is based on a character that I played in a RPG for many years. She was based on myself, and at the beginning of the game when she managed to escape from Faerie she was given a new identity. Her original name was Faye Isabeau Newman (faye is a brand new man), which the GM thought was hilarious. I convinced him to let her take her last name after her aunt how had raised her (based on the history of the person's identity she was borrowing from a dead girl) and so she became Faye Croft.

I may end up changing her last name, as I have since broken off ties with the group that I played in this game with and would like to reimagine her into a new(ish) character to write stories on.

 

I have a set of guidelines when naming a doll. It must be something I am comfortable saying out loud. The doll also needs to have the name before they come home but not before I've actually purchased them. For example if I am bidding on an auction I cannot name the doll until I've won otherwise I've jinxed it. However if they don't have a name before they get to the house then there is a good chance they won't be staying.

There are also some other strange rules in my house. All my Shiwoo are named Alexander or similar. So far we have Alexander, Xander, Alexi, and Alexa. All elves and fairies are named after plants or flowers. The only exception being Trey my modded DZ Mo though he's a half elf. Also all human characters have a first and last name, sometimes a middle if it fits. Helps flesh out the character a bit more for me.

 

It just across my mind and when my 1st doll arrived, I also added my Chinese last name for him

 

(In arrival order)

Clavis's name technically is Hyoya, but the nickname "Clavis" came from the title of a song I had obsessed over at the time ^^;
Kagi's name was the second part of the same song title... "Clavis Kagi~" by Kudou Shizuka
Kaze's name was long decided, but we didn't expect him to be such a yellowy skin tone so we nicknamed him "Butter"
Kakeru was a surprise arrival so I didn't have plans for him, but he chose the name himself when I was trying to decide on a name for him
Gime was planned; twins with my sister's doll "Gimi" so one means Princess and the other Prince
Jun's name means "pure" or "simple", which fits in with his childish appearance and behaviour (another surprise arrival)
Natsu (susprise arrival) is a Luts '13 Summery, and "Natsu" is the Japanese for "summer"
Kei's name means "shape" or "form", which is suitable for his role as a face-up practice head

--
And so far that's it! :P

 

I was showing a friend of mine a mockup I did for what I wanted Bitter to look like, and she suggested I name her "Saffron" because the eyes I chose for her are a warm gold color like the color saffron... I was kind of poking around at that idea and I got from there to Bitter, because saffron has a somewhat bitter taste... I guess I somehow decided that would be a good name for a doll haha. But I like it, it's kinda weird because it's just a random adjective, and I like that. Her character is an android so I figured it's ok if she has an unusual name.

Pan's full name is Pandemonium but I call her a variety of words that start with "Pan" like Pandemic, Pandora, Panda... etc. I really just wanted to pick out a versatile name that was related to the apocalypse theme of her story, so Pandemonium and its variations was good, and it's cute and nice sounding when shortened to "Pan"

I honestly can't remember what exactly my logic behind naming Malle was... I know his last name is "Cherno" like... chernobyl... to incorporate that apocalypse theme again. Malle was probably just something I sorta pulled out of thin air and went "yeah that sounds simple and masculine I like it"

And then Roi is just the french word for "king" whoops I just picked a word in french and took it... His full name is Petit Roi bc he is a little king~

 

So Yuki has the name because when I was planning on getting her she was going to be white resin but was actually normal. Her name didn't change tho because she responded to it.
My floater head Fuyu is a Luts winter '10 head and Fuyu is winter...... yeh original.....
The next dollies I want are twins and they will be called Kobashi and Amai so that is savoury and sweet.

All the Japanese names!!!!!

 

Baby name websites...

 

Azrael's name was the first thing that popped into my head when I was browsing through the DZ website. After several more sites and dozens of dolls later I went back to him (DZ 1/3 Raymond) and decided he was the one I wanted as my first.

Valeriana's name literally only came to me on Saturday. I took her on an outing to the Royal Botanic Gardens, and after a day of looking through plant names, I chose to name her after a herb (Valerian) traditionally used to calm people and put them to sleep. That's kind of her job in a way; Azrael protects her from danger, but she protects him from himself.

 

sometimes they whisper their name to me. i know that sounds insane, i swear it happens. i hear a little voice in my head say it. if they don't tell me, I look at baby name sites, or wikipedia-- for example, say I want a name that has something to do with the earth, I'll look up greek goddess names, stuff like that. I also have found some neat names just looking at flickr.

sometimes a doll will have a name that has something to do with how I got her, like my #7 luts minifee, she was sold to me by a lovely girl named Vienna so I named my doll Vienna. My ante, Surprise, was an unplanned purchase, she was in stock at denver dolls and I just... found myself in checkout! Surprise!

 

I have a baby name book I usually go to when I need to name a character. The only ones named after anyone/anything in particular are Lorina & Ina (same character, different ages), after Alice Liddell's mother.

 

The only dolls I've actually had to make up names for (that weren't based on existing characters) were Ian, and the ID Jonas I'm about to get, Andi. My DZ Deer Boy, Ian, is named after the Texas Rangers' second baseman, Ian Kinsler, because he has freckles and antlers and the Rangers had the whole "claw and antler" thing the first year we went to the World Series. (If you made a play that required high speed, you got the "antlers" sign from the guys in the dugout because you were "running like a deer." Ian Kinsler held the record for stolen bases, so I decided that if I was going to have an antlered boy his name should be Ian. That he had freckles just sealed it.) He's got a little makeshift jersey that I'm still trying to perfect the design of, and he watches games with me.

Andi is named after a nameless character, which sounds impossible, but I'll explain. IslandDoll's Jonas reminds me a lot of a young Paul McGann, and my favorite of his early movies is "Withnail & I." But the thing about it is you go through the entire movie without ever once hearing the main character's name. In the credits he's just listed as "...& I." So I named my Paul look-a-like "And I" too--Andi.

 

I kinda just pick names I like and assign them to dolls. Lol.

 

Sometimes I make the name up in my head and other times I hear the name somewhere and like it enough to use it for a doll. Also you can scroll through tons of kids names online and get some really unique ones.

 

Most of mine are old book characters, that I then made into dolls, so I haven't had much trouble in unexpected dolls *tries to tell myself that but it's actually not true* Aranhil, Raima, Chrona and Snowfrost are all character from my main book project, and the first three I came up with by taking lots of fantasy names, and then just reorganize some letters until I found something that looked pretty and that I could pronounce rather prettily ^^ Snowfrost is an ooooooold wolf character of mine, that I just kind of couldn't help throwing into the book xD
Aranhil was my first doll, and I actually created this character for my first Nanowrimo, and I saw him for second hand sale and kind of grabbed him, because he fitted the character... ^^"
Raima was my next doll, and she's the main character of my book :3
Snowfrost came next, and I had known since the day I saw Aquarius Doll Sia grey skin that she would be my wolf lady/wolf goddess :3 And the name came to me in a dream
Shadow my little dragon was next, and he's also an old character of mine, but for RP like, ages ago xD I first saw Lapis and was like "have to have" but, limited as it was, I settled for an Ashes that became little grumpy Shadow ^^
Chrona came next, and her name reminds me a little of clock work, or something, and chrome, and yeah, her wolf personality shines through a little ^^
Chip was next, as I finally got my Lapis T___T I named him Chip because he loves sweets and is as sweet as candy, and I like chocolate chip cookies xD
Nathaniel is the latest addition, and I knew I wanted something fancy for him, but since I didn't have any name for a four-legged-human-torso-character yet, I took Nathaniel who is fancy-pantsy name, and that I adore!

....So most of mine are already decided from earlier merging or just randomly thought of ^^"