Anyway. I was reading an article on the Holy Spirit Led Homeschooling blog about the process that they use to name their children, and although I do have a great story behind the choice of each name, I thought I would be a little ... different.... and explain my system for naming stuffed animals :)
Each stuffed animal in our home must have a proper name. We can't just let our fuzzy friends go without proper identification! Perhaps I have a special soft spot for stuffed animals because I grew up reading The Velveteen Rabbit, or maybe because with my children (and without), I have watched the Toy Story series about one hundred thousand times... Either way, feel like our fake fuzzies have enough clout, and may be secretly alive, so we should name them.
With stuffed animals, there are a few basic form of identification:
1. Physical Features
The first is one of physical features. Now, this would certainly not work for children, because if I had named my first child based on her appearance at birth, she would be named "Shrunken Head of Mine" instead of Julie. My second, would be named, "Creepy Chicken Feet-Hands", instead of Jacob. You get the picture. So, back to our animal friends, a perfect example of the type 1 identification is the baby's crib mate, Dottie the Elephant. As you can see, Dottie's name describes several of her physical features, and without even seeing her, I'm sure you get the metal picture- She is an elephant, and she has dots. Pretty simple, and yet effective.
2. Stating the Obvious
So, the second approach is pretty fun. All of a sudden you become Captain Obvious! This one works well in my very creative naming of baby's other crib mate, her special Pillow Pet from her Auntie Tiffany. Since her "animal" is a bee (this was a pre-determined thing, she is stuck with it, sorry), her aunt got her a miniature bumble bee pillow pet. I have decided to name him "Pilloughby", you know, as in "Pillow Bee". *Groans* I know,I know... I told you it was stating the obvious! So, in this case, if I named my children by stating the obvious, I suppose they would be named something like "Furstkid", "Itsaboy", and "Anutherwun?". This really works best when not applied to humans.
3. Actions Speak Louder... as names?
The third option that you have in naming your plush pets would be giving them a name based on what they can do. For instance, baby has another bee toy that vibrates when you push its wing, so we named it, appropriately, "Buzzy Bee". This method really only works if you have toys that provide some sort of action or sound. Again, I can tell you all of my kids would probably be named the same thing if I did this, "Cacophony 1, 2, 3, and 4."
4. Extremely Harsh Human Names
The last category of stuffed animal names comes along when we just can't be creative enough to come up with a real stuffed animal name. So we name it some serious, outdated, masculine human name instead, you know, because fluffy pink rabbits should be called Walter and stuff. In our case, we have Frank, the big blue monster who keeps the bad monsters away. I know that people name their kids Walter and Frank, but I still think those are some seriously intimidating names, names that should be given to future mob bosses, perhaps. And purple fuzzy frogs. I think that the equivalent of naming a stuffed animal a name like this, would be naming your child one of those wild Biblical names that no one can pronounce, like "Neginoth", or "Thahash". Please don't do this to your children.
So that wraps up our look into the process of naming stuffed animals. I certainly hope that you have come away informed, and fully prepared to address all of your fuzzy friends properly, because stuffed toys have feelings, too. Even if it's only after humans go to sleep.