I was thinking, what would be some cool or unique names for a bjd company? and why name it that? I think some of us have thought about making our own doll brand, im interested to see what other people can think up. Help me brainstorm ^_^ throw some names at me :XD
My company will be called Vanir Dolls. Vanir is an old scandinavian word for one side of the gods of our old religion; Freyja and Njord were two gods who were "Vanirs". I wanted something related to my heritage as a swede, without going straight into the world of vikings, haha. I call my first doll Ask, which is the name of the first human to ever enter Midgård (Midgard/Middle Earth) in our old religion. His sister, Embla, was the second human to enter Midgård - and Embla is the name of my second doll. (Although, I'm going to re-do her completely from scratch...) Just some thoughts behind my choice of names. ^_^
Mine is FreakStyleBJD. I had no idea what to name my company. Since my real name is 'Frederieke', and I'm nicknamed 'Freak', I just thought: "You know, I'm making dolls in my own style. Freak's Style." I added "BJD" so I would be easier to find in google.
silk: Lol that's pretty funny but good thinking ^_^ I love reading these stories though of how it became about. I get so inspired when i see other people start their own bjd company. Do you think eventually there will be more bjd companys from different countrys other than asian countrys? Aminoff: neat, i didn't know any of that o: Now i know who Ask is ^_^ I have heard about Midgard though from an old game Valkyrie profile. Will your company have a Vanir theme? or is it just names for your current dolls?
@GuroDoLL: I think there will be more non-asian companies, although I'm not certain if in a year or two there will be just as many new company releases as there are today. The market is over-saturated and it's hard to sell dolls. I think this might discourage other new makers from entering the hobby.
Thanks, it took some thinking, haha. ^^ I've always liked having some sort of background or idea behind the names I choose for every character I create, I think it's really fun. I'm not sure yet, actually. At first I was thinking of only having a Vanir theme, but lately I've realized that I've got ideas that fall outside this category... ^^;
Aaah... this post feels really ironic to me, because I spent the last couple of months wrecking my brain in search of a name for my dolls (shortly to come). Last week I settled for EtherealDolls. All my concepts include some otherworldly/supernatural element and I wanted that to be reflected. It also has a bonus of describing an apprpriate visual quality. In addition I needed a word that would be the same or at least sound good in Russian (me being Russian) as well as English, and this one did the trick. When choosing a name you also have to think about what domains and social network/blog names are available. Because a lot of them might be taken, especially if you want a .com. You can use those social network name checker tools like this one http://namechk.com. I didn't really want "doll" in the name, because it sounds so "inanimate", but yeah silk is right it does help with being more discoverable in search engines like google. @silk I think you are right about the market being saturated. But I also think it's quality vs quantity situation. So many of them are just plain bad design or don't bring anything new to the bjd world. People just jumping on the bandwagon. But a lot of them are commercial companies and I always prefer artisan companies best with their unique styles. Oh and of course digital printing had certainly broadened the spectrum too. However to me they'll always be a separate category. I'm not saying better or worse, just separate. P.S. GuroDoll it's hard to give advice on good names without knowing you personally and concepts/styles you like. But a general piece of advice is to use a dictionary to look for synonyms of the words you might like to find something more original or unusual sounding with the same meaning. Or if you are really stuck and want something weird try a fantasy name generator, something that writers use to throw some crazy names into the brainstorming mix and see how those names are formed.
@nia2010: glad you brought it up, i didn't even think about domain or blog names being taken. I also think the word "doll" has been overused in doll companies, but hey it is a doll company after all so its easily recognizable as one. I don't plan on using that word as part of my doll company's name. I like unique one word names like twigling, I think there are advantages to this, like when someone brings it up at least everyone in the doll hobby knows what you're talking about and if your new to the hobby then the name really stands out. I've read some reviews with bjd makers and I agree, the doll market is saturated, I was on BJD Collectasy and the doll list is HUGE. I think its great there are more options out there but from what I see allot of them don't have that great of doll poseability or sometimes their dolls look generic and that really puts me off from buying. I recently came across dollpamm which I've read is all done by one person, and i have to say their doll theme and doll bodies are great ^_^. I think one of my pet peeves is coming across a doll company with amazing looking dolls only to find out their doll bodies are boring and generic. back on topic: originally i had decided on Guro Doll as the name for my doll company. At the time i was really inspired to make bjd's by a japanese artist named Etsuko Miura. His theme (i think hes a man not sure lol) was like a dark macabre atmosphere and his dolls looked like vintage pale unsaturated gory dolls. XD Overtime I realized I didn't want to just focus on one theme and I wanted to expand on other ideas I had. I have a ton of ideas for doll themes now and I cant wait to make them happen. So now Im trying to come up with a unique name that i think would define my dolls. ^_^
I know what you mean about abstract singular names. In theory those are very appealing, don't know if they are good in practice. Personally I have a loose connection in my brain where names are concerned. Just for the life of me can't remember even the simplest everyday people's names. So for me simple association like quality+what it is works best. Ha! I'm the opposite :-) Currently I see my doll more like a canvas onto which I can plaster my concepts and I have a theme that's been very important to me for some years and which I can now explore artistically through the doll medium. If some singular name emerges through that exploration i might change, but I don't want to force it. I didn't want to spend a year picking a name, I'd rather concentrate on the actual making and see where it takes me. After all it's just a name and the artwork is what matters. Everything else I considered was partially taken on the web and this one just happened to be available everywhere. I couldn't believe my eyes. A good sign? So I thought OK that's it you are MINE! :-)
I don't like to use the word 'doll' in a company name. The main reason why I finally did decide to add BJD is because there are a few visual artist who use the name 'Freakstyle' and I didn't want them to pop up on top of the google search page when people were looking for my company. In that regard my company's name isn't a very good one. My first choice was the name 'Renaissance', because people said that my doll sculpts reminded them of sculptures from that time. I eventually decided against it. The name would place too big an emphasis on my current sculpting style, but what if I would someday decide to take a 180 turn and go full on comicstyle or whatever? Now, the main thing I'm struggling with now is what to call the several doll lines. I've got 60cm dolls and am currently working on a 45cm doll. It would be kind of cool to give the lines uncommon names. But then again, if I just call them 'large', 'mini' and 'tiny' customers would actually know what I'm talking about . I'm kind of ambivalent about this when looking at other companies as well. I totally buy Fairyland's categories, but have trouble remembering Iplehouse's names. And then there are dozens of companies I don't even know if they have category names.
When I come to an impasse like this, I remember the first principle of design - KISS (keep it simple stupid). Can't go wrong :-)
Cool or not, but I find it really irritating when I come to a website and haven't got a clue where to navigate, because of the "special" names they've given all their categories. Really puts me off and I usually just browse off. Much prefer size categories to be descriptive and can't justify giving them stupid names, unless they really are a special category onto themselves like with soomdolls where they have gems, mechas etc. At least those you can differentiate, because their concepts are so different, but with those innumerable pukis and chiclines, I can't tell them apart.
I've always had a name in mind if I ever got any sort of doll into production: Galatea BJD. In Greek mythology, Pygmalion sculpted a statue so beautiful that he fell in love with it and Aphrodite brought her to life for him. He named her Galatea. I originally got into the forums cause I liked the idea of sculpting them, which is why I chose that username. I tend to agree about odd line names for sizing. I don't like them if that's the only way they are presented on a website. Like if they only say "King Line" instead of "King Line (65cm)" I think if different lines are going to have special names, they should make some sense, like Soom's Gem lines (Super, Mega, Little, Teenie)
nia2010 : Well originally I made this thread to see what people can come up with at the top of their heads and why they would use that name, I didn't think people would reply with their backstories but im glad they did. ^_^ I wasn't looking for a name for my doll company, I just wanted a disscussion on it and to share what I would call my bjd company if I had one. silk: true, that's why i decided against Guro Doll as a doll company name, it means gore doll in Japanese, and I wanted to try other themes as well and not feel tied down to one theme. I like the way your name came about though because its a name that represents your art style. OH! you're so lucky, I always wanted to come up with my own doll line names. Yeah you got a good point there to naming them by size. I also get confused by iplehouse's doll size names lol. If you do make names for them though you could always put the sizes next to the name, in cm or just words.
If I ever get that far, my company name will probably be Nonsense Nomad, which is the (throwaway) name that I used when registering myself as an independent trader a few years ago. It's just pulled fom an advert which I used to walk past every day, which had a load of evocative words in alphabetical order on it, and those two stood out to me. I imagine that my sculpts will end up with just numbers and size designations, to make it easy for myself to remember which ones are which (No more "Which one is Albert? Right, so which one is Apathy?", just "S2, ah, the second 60cm doll, T1 - yep, found it, the first 12cm one".
I think Latidolls had colors for different sizes and lines, they also had small cute pictures for each line so it was easy to guess the size from that, and I guess the fans remembered this color code. Or you can give a name with the size in cm next to it... As for names, I didn't want to use the word doll either but I think it happened anyway (I'm not good at remembering what I want) I'm not happy with the name but then again I know I would have regretted any other name as well... I'm that bad! :P Maybe a name that would sound nice with or without "doll" in it is the answer? Oh, and for some brainstorming we need to know your background story or to know what your dolls look like... any pictures?
I don't have any serious plans on starting an actual doll company, but my dolls are called "Lilliim". Literally "children of Lillith". My first name is Lillith, so the name just happened. I don't even remember who said it first, but it stuck. I don't just make jointed dolls, though, so maybe I should try to figure out something else for them.
I'm going to go with "jellyfish faces". It's the name I use for my face up commissions. I was struggling with naming my shop, so I asked my boyfriend what I should name it, and he just replied "jellyfish", without really thinking about it. I added the "faces" in it and there it was. XD My face up work has nothing to do with jellyfishes but I think they're cool, so I'm just rolling with it. I'm going to use this name for future doll sculpting as well, as it kind of works in there too. All my dolls will either be just faces (aka heads) or they're going to have faces (along with the body), so why not. I thought about using a name like "jellyfish dolls" or "jellyfishBJD" or "jellyfishfaceBJD", but they don't have the right sound to them. I just hope it won't be too confusing to just let it be "jellyfish faces".... About category names, I still don't know. I'm probably going to sculpt only in SD size, so I'm not sure if there's need to have a category name for it. But we'll see. Who knows, maybe I'll end up sculpting something smaller or bigger too. :3
I am going pretty simple and using 'LeopardessMoon Design'. I do art other than dolls as well so I didn't want to have doll in the title in case I wanted to do some other things on the side.
I've been going with Demused for lack of a better idea. I've used it as my "thing" for basically ever, seemed only appropriate to apply it to dolls. I should probably do more with the branding side of things if I'm going to be producing things... just haven't been arsed yet.
I went with Illuminated. I'm not sure what the thought process was behind it originally (it's been such a long time) but it's stuck. @HystericalParoxysm Waaaaaait, so that's you on Tumblr? I thought that was an entirely different also amazing 3D creator, haha! I knew you had a Tumblr but not a separate one for your dolls.
