The Importance of Naming

I haven't gotten my first doll yet, but I already have his name. I used to RP a lot and he's going to represent a character (a villian at that) I used to play from a now defunct swashbuckling adventure game called 7th Seas.

 

9 times out of 10, the name is the first thing I decide when considering ordering the doll. Usually though, since I'm so bad at thinking names up, I just use one of those baby naming sites and search for a name that sounds right.

 

I love names, so the naming process is very important to me as a doll-owner.

I've seen other people say, "Once you've named a sculpt, you're probably going to buy it." That's totally how it works for me. I spent hours and hours looking at dolls before I took the plunge and bought my first girl, but she was named before the decision was officially made. It's almost like, by naming her, I was already subliminally ready for her to come home and I wouldn't have been otherwise.

Likewise, I've already named my second doll, even though she's not purchased yet. While I save money, I have this "idea" of the character, name and all, maturing in my mind. By the time she gets home, I imagine I'll already sort of know her.

Now, if a doll were to suddenly fall into my lap without all my excruciating planning, I don't know how the naming process might go.

 

Yeah, I love naming my dolls, all of them, on this way can I have a feeling that these dolls are all mine. Besides, each name of my dolls stand for an important meaning.

 

Some of them are based on pre-existing characters (my own, as well as my favorites from books, video games, and anime), some of them pop into my head randomly while waiting for the doll to arrive or while working on their faceup or first outfit... and some take a lot of thought and a process of trial-and-error to find the perfect name.

As for where the names themselves come from... I guess the obvious answer would be "somewhere in my brain" Some of the names I've come up with are deliberately named after things, and some are just random syllables strung together that I liked the sound of.

 

I named my first doll (an El) the moment I saw him on Luts' shop. He was "Kilik" to me back then, but over the three years that I saved up for him, somewhere along the line his name accidentally changed to Kiril -- and stuck. I named the second doll before I even browsed for him. He wasn't a character or anything like that. I just decided one day "I want a sweet and happy looking boy, and I want to name him Hiroshi. I named one the moment I saw him in the marketplace and knew I had to bring him home. And the last I didn't name until almost a month after he arrived!

 

I am ordering my first BJD soon and I am struggling with a name, as well. My friend, who introduced me to these beautiful creatures, said the names came to her after she unboxed them. She said that they kind of named themselves. I am hoping to have a name prepared for mine and for the most part, I know I want a Victorian name for my doll. I just haven't quite narrowed it down. There are so many possibilities. I just don't want to name her and then change her name later.

I hope you have picked a nice name for your BJD.

 

I am crazy about names... When I think about ordering a doll my mind immediately starts to think about names. Sometimes that really is a problem because I do that for hours and days, I am not concentrated at work at all sometimes because I am inventing tons of names until I find the right one.

But I have alsways been like this, in school it took me half of the time I had to write an esaay just to find out how the protagonist of my essay is called. And I know the name for my future kids for nearly 10 years now^^

 

Names have always been important to me. I think a name has to represent something of the doll's (or OC's) intrinsic nature and character. I used to be obsessive about making up names, and would spend hours just dreaming up and making lists of them! Of course my dolls would have meaningful names.

I generally either make up the names from my own imagination, or take a descriptive word from English or another language (but not a name). Names have to make sense in the context of the characters. I generally don't like using baby names, since my chars are neither human nor from human civilization.

These days, I prefer short and simple names over the long and elaborate ones I used to make up. A succinct name sometimes packs a harder punch than a long one. All my dolls have simple names that (I think) perfectly embodies their characters, and more the better if I can name a doll with a single name (instead of a compound/first & last name). My angelic characters are Syr and Justinian and Halcyon... if you think about those names carefully, I think you can deduce which virtues each one embodies!

 

Names are very important for me! My doll usually should have a name before it arrives. It's not too important for me the name has some special meaning or is unique, but I'd prefer this for some of my dolls.
I love names from all over the world, mostly I choose Japanese names (I'm an Anime/Manga fangirl) but also love German, Turkish, Yiddish, Arabic, English, French,... and Fantasy names, depending on each character.

 

I just ordered my first doll too and he is supposed to hopefully be here in a few weeks or a month, but I am still having such a hard time naming him. At first he was going to be named after a character of mine, but then I thought to myself...what if I want to change his entire character as soon as he arrives? I think naming takes time for some people and for others the names come really quickly. Especially if they already decided on what kind of dolly character they are making.

 

I usually name my dolls based on words that match their personalities. For example, "Vacide" (my goth girl) was derived from a couple of different words meaning "void." Her general outlook is supposed to be the "glass-half-empty" sort of thing, so I wanted her name to reflect that. I've also pulled some names from a novel series I've been working on for a few years- Adina being one of them (that's the name of my MNF Dark Elf Soo). The character of doll!Adina is waaaaay different from the character in my novel, but I love the name enough that I wanted to use it. I would most likely not use a family name for a doll, as I would rather name a child after someone in the family if they were that close to me.

 

I have the need to name my dolls too, I just wouldn't buy a doll as expensive as BJDs are just as a pretty thing, I want there to be a little more, to make it worth even more for me.
The way I choose names is quite weird I think... Most letters and names have "colors" in my head. This might be weird but, for example, I feel like names starting with a "P" are good names for redheads, specially boys. So that's why I choose "Pepper" for my little redhead boy. Then there's this doll I want to get someday, a Doll chateau Hugh girl, and she'll have a green/dark kind of faceup. To me, the "E" is green, so I wanted a name that started with an E, and then I saw "Ecru", It fitted nicely, because the word itself sounds "green" for me, but it actually means a beige kinda color, which is exactly the kind of color I want her wig to be.
I dunno, maybe I sound crazy haha.

 

My dolls names haven't really come from people I've know in real life. The closest would be one male doll is called "Poika" which is what my brother was called when he was young, and it stuck as a nickname and then the actual name of a doll. One doll name--Remedy Violet--came to me in a dream, sort-of, which is also similar to the name of one of my favorite artists (Remedios Varo). A lot of my dolls have names from things I like. Guppy Ramone is named in part after The Ramones; the names Edel and Kasha were taken from anime I love (Princess Tutu and Solty Rei). Others are just things that struck me as a good name: I knew Jasper would be my first male doll because I love the name (though it sorta got wrecked for awhile by Twilight). Going back to Guppy: she was also dubbed Guppy because she looked a bit like a fish, and Munkie was also dubbed as such because she looked a bit like a monkey.

 

coming up with names has always been something fun for me, looking into origins of said name to match the characters personality, history, or both. The moment I ordered my doll I was running over ideas on what she would be like, and ran though names upon names upon names. When she finally got here I thought I had it figured out, but the more time I spent with her (its been less than a month already) the more she didn't fit the idea I had 'matched' with her. She is my first BJD of course so that might be part of the reason, but more so is because I only have eyes for her and a hideous wig that I want nothing to do with. As it stands she is nameless, but I think after some trial and error with clothing and wigs I'll find the right name to fit with whatever personality and character history develops.
Shouldn't be too hard once her blushing is done and she's restrung, my mind is always running about new character ideas and stories. Its near impossible to get it to shut up haha.

 

For me the surname is more important than the first. Though I don't ignore the relationship altogether, since my stories focus a bit on region. I just kind of go with what I like.

 

I'm having trouble naming my new doll. It's my third and it's really giving me trouble because I already had a name, but when I got her I realized that it's not fitting her. So I need a new one ASAP.

My first 2 dolls were ordered a month apart so I had time to look for just the perfect names.
They are named after Painters, Fashion designers and a Queen:

-Chloe Victoria Vermeer
Fashion house Cloe
Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom (also my mother's name who was named after the queen)
Johannes Vermeer, Dutch Painter

-Christian Henri Lanvin
Fashion designer Christian Dior
Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, French Painter
Fashion Designer Jeanne Lanvin

The name I wanted for my third doll was based off of the heroine of one of my favorite books when I was a teenager: The Lady of the Camellias by Alexandre Dumas fils. She was to be named "Marguerite Gautier". Now I got to think or an edgier name for her.

 

blue_starkiller: I love how you choose the names for your dolls!

I never thought about my dolls having sur names, somehow my dolls only have first names. Probably because they are fantasy characters for me. Or maybe because the companies only give their dolls first names, too. But I don't think I would ever be able to find a matching sur name for my dolls anyways.

 

I actually named my dolls the most pretentious names I can think of at the time I adopt them! They're names that my future husband probably wouldn't let me give to our kids, so the kids (and the dolls) are safe from the sharing-a-name trap.

My first girl is named Caroline Blanchette D'Langley (pronounced ka-row-leen), and my two little girls are named Aicha Gwenaelle and Valeria Brianne. I've got plenty more pretentious names reserved for the dolls on my wish list, too.

 

@vanellablanche: Haha! Valeria Brianna - That's my cousin's name!

@Lil Spark: Thank you! I don't use their middle or last names much, I only think of them as Christian & Chloe, just like you would call a friend "Max" or "John"; but since they're both very common human names I prefer to give them last names so they don't get confused with real people.