What inspires your doll's names?

At first, I haven't a name in mind, I create and built the character first and after, and only after, a name commes in my mind. I make some research and try to find one who suit the best with my character's personality.

 

When I finally get my doll I usual just look at her and after her eyes, wig, and face up are on then I get a better idea of who she is. I don't try and plan names out, I let her name come to me after some time.

 

several of my dolls are named after characters from favorite books, or after favorite authors, though most people wouldn't be able to figure it out as the names are often fairly common. if i don't have a book name i just browse through baby names till i find one that i like the sound of and the meaning works well with that particular doll. sometimes i have a specific characteristic that i want to highlight so i will do the reverse search and look for the meaning first and then pick a name i like from that list. sooner or later one of those methods works and i find the "right" name for that doll.

 

My 1st girl aidoll hani whom i named stella (star) but she rejected it so instead i call her Ai (love), the rest have a common letter in their names Luna, Hina, Yuna, Sakura and Arwen. Mixture of fantasy and japanese

 

It depends a little on the doll, but in the end it's fairly random! Otakar's name was chosen to be easy to pronounce, and it needed to be Czech because that's where the plot takes place. Valli's was derived from the German nickname of the FMC of a series I was reading at the time. I still kind of want to change it to something more Norse, though. I wanted a food/berry name for Winterberry and that one was cutest. Hideyasu got that name because I wildly messed up saying Tokugawa Ieyasu's name once, and combined it with Toyotomi Hideyoshi's... fun fact, this is now the in-universe explanation for his name, too. For doll-hopefuls, Vit's name is similar to Otakar's, plus was the name of a church I visited while I made them up. Tianzhu needed to be Chinese, and I ended up just toying with characters I thought sounded pretty until I got something I found cute. Vissarion needed a weird Russian name, so he got stuck with that one.

So there's method to my madness, but there's also four different sets of dolls, so it's not very obvious.

 

This is oddly specific, but for my unoas, I try to name them after desserts in a way that can also be conveyed as a normal name.
I have Eclair, Tiramisu, and another unoa on the way who I've got a long list of similar names to pick from I'm considering Latte (like Lotte, short for Charlotte) but there's still time to make up my mind!

 

I want Finnish names for my dolls as I try to keep their characters (somewhat) realistic - I'm Finnish myself. Many Finnish names are very plain and boring though, so it takes time to find names that are pretty but not ridiculous. I browse different name lists and try to get a feeling of the doll's character while browsing. Then I make a list of names I find suitable and go through it crossing over the ones I like the least until I only have one name left. Once or twice I've come across a name that simply feels like it belongs to my doll, even if I had been planning something different. Serafina, my mnf Celine, got her name like this. The same thing happened with a character that I don't have a doll for yet. She wants to be called Selina, which I'm not sure if I like... It's too much of a mary sue snowflake princess name, like Selene, Selena, Serena and so on. Most of my dolls have been named with the elimination system, though.

 

hmmm constellations, anything related to outer space. XD I am fascinated with these so yeah.

 

Mine are kind of random actually. Mostly based off of movies, people I knew or places. I love traditional names, but venture more towards different names when it comes down to it. Elgin was a kid I knew, Beck is a band, Sardine and Sushi are my twin pipos kitties named because I thought it was cute with them being twins and such. Ripley was from Aliens. It's all pretty random...

 

My characters tend to have "themed" names, or names I pick based on their meanings or...random nouns/verbs. Such as Tamper. Which is named after the verb "to tamper": interfere with (something) in order to cause damage or make unauthorized alterations. I mean, his original WIP name was "Box" so I think it's an improvement.
For doll #2 I'm trying to come up with an actual name but I don't have anything yet

 

My dolls are based on elements or kinds of magic, so their name is either another name for their element. Like Cobalt for the metal element. Or can be reffering to an element. Like Senlin for my wood element, Senlin being the Chinese word for forrest. For magic it's a bit harder, for example Blossom for my poition girl, since she makes her potions with flowers and herbs. I try to stick with this theme, and for that reason I guess one of my dolls still doens'tn have her name.

I also have 2 dolls that do not follow this logic, because they're based on my dog. So for obvious reasons, one of them is named after my dog.

 

What inspires my dolls names?

Um, the name of the sculpt

I'm terrible with naming things, and I'm not one who makes characters for them.

 

I have a list of about 50 names which I absolutely adore & I usually choose one of those. They're mostly French, or really old or really pretentious

 

I think the names for my twins are based on symbolic representation of their core character/personality. Their names are heavily inspired by Death Note, where L's last name is Lawliet which implies his strong sense of justice and Mello ironically for his intense emotionally-driven actions despite of the laid back connotations. None of my original dolls will share names with existing characters that I know and love since it's just weird for me. It's like having two acquaintances sharing the same first names, even though I have not encountered such case so far.

 

Since they're based on original characters I have the origins of their names vary to what's appropriate from the setting they're from. Usually when I'm trying to come up with names I do a lot of research from different languages, looking at lists of names or looking up meanings, things like that.

 

My first doll is named Icarus, cause I wanted to a steampunk version of the myth. It didn't stick but the name did.

 

Unlike many BJD hobbyists I don't shell OCs, so I don't go through a long or painful process picking a name that fits a character. My names can be obvious nicknames, like calling Chloe and Celine Coco and Cece, or choosing the first letter, so Nanuri 13 becomes Nina. Other names were on my baby name lists--Olivia, Charlotte. Others are names I like such as Sylvie, after my cousin Sylvia, and Charlotte (and then I found out an ancestor was named Charlotte!)

 

I always can "name" the doll when I first see him/her with their face-ups.
like when I see my doll, I will said "oh I think it will be suitable if I name him....."
I don't know where are these come from but usually I told my friend too so we can think of the name together XD

 

Actually I don't name dolls at all. They only have their profession (for example Sailor, my first doll).
It feels more natural to me since I don't really do stories and I have bad habit to change the setting in time to time.

 

I try to give my doll/dolls to be names that have some meaning to it. I particularly like names in the olden days because I feel they generally have more meanings and intent than the names of today (Bernadette vs hashtag), so I tend to go through lists of popular names in a particular era, while also researching their meanings.