I'm curious about how this works in other families

February 27, 2013 6:58 PM

What is the name of your child's favorite stuffed animal? I just wanted to know what kind of names kids come up with for the little characters that inhabit their bedrooms. Curiosity is all.
posted by Slarty Bartfast to Grab Bag (88 answers total)

Ziggy (a zebra). But he was named by us, the parents. The only one that my kid named himself is called Banky (a bouncy pony).
posted by xo at 7:38 PM on February 27, 2013

The doll is "Doll Doll." The bear is "Softie Bear."
posted by 256 at 7:39 PM on February 27, 2013

from the babysitees: pooh, pooh, and wormy
posted by chrysanthemum at 7:39 PM on February 27, 2013

I named all of mine "Pretty" -- dolls, bears, blankets, whatever. I used to be embarrassed when my mom reminded me of this because it makes kid-me sound terribly shallow, but now I prefer to think of it as logical inference -- as a little girl, most people greet you with "what a pretty girl!" or "such pretty hair!" or "what a pretty dress!", so I must have assumed it was a generic name.
posted by ella wren at 7:40 PM on February 27, 2013 [2 favorites]

When I was a little kid, I had a stuffed rabbit I named Amoxicillin after the antibiotic, because he was the same bright pink.

I know you asked for people's kids' toy names, but it's so unusual I thought I would add it. My mom is a doctor and was very proud of the name and told everyone.
posted by sweetkid at 7:41 PM on February 27, 2013 [9 favorites]

My bunny was Whitey (I know), and my sister's bear was Snow.
posted by ocherdraco at 7:41 PM on February 27, 2013

My oldest daughter had a bear that was stuffed with beans or something heavy - hence "Heavy Bear." My son had a boy bear that he named "Chica". My daughter put a paper cup on the bear's hand and it became "Chica Hand of the Liver." When they took the cup off, it was "Chica Plain of the Liver." He also had a stuffed dog named "Poochaton." The youngest has a baby doll named "Baby Lolo", but I can't think of any crazy stuffed animal names of hers at the moment.
posted by artychoke at 7:42 PM on February 27, 2013 [4 favorites]

Bluie (a big blue pillow), Chicken (a dog), Dog Food (a cat), Baba (a small sheep), Marlena (a small blue angel), and Jackie (a jack rabbit). I named the last two because the kids were too young to. The first four they named themselves.
posted by cocoagirl at 7:42 PM on February 27, 2013

Oh, that's right - to add to what I said above, my youngest only names dolls apparently. Besides baby Lolo, she has fake American Girl dolls named Lacey, Grassy and Greasy. Yeah.
posted by artychoke at 7:48 PM on February 27, 2013 [1 favorite]

Favourites from various:

"Swooty" (mis-hearing of sweetie)
"Mr Sparksin" (no explanation)
"BP" (after British Petroleum signs)
"Brownish" (a ~-coloured bear)
posted by kmennie at 7:48 PM on February 27, 2013 [1 favorite]

A stuffed lamb named Lamby.
posted by Sal and Richard at 7:48 PM on February 27, 2013

Hop Frog
Honey Bear
Buckle Bear
Brown Bear
Rainbow Bear
Woolly Bear
Willabur (pig knitted by his aunt Willa)
Big Pig (larger version of Willabur)
Little Giraffie

When I was a child I had a stuffed rabbit named Eddie Bear.
posted by alms at 7:49 PM on February 27, 2013

Wallygator, a stuffed alligator, Lambie, a pink lamb that played Brahm's Lullaby, Camelot, a grey horse, and Sylvester, a cat that kind of generically looked like the cartoon.
posted by PussKillian at 7:50 PM on February 27, 2013

The only one I can remember is Terry the Pterodactyl. My son thought it was clever because they sounded similar but one started with p and the other with t.
posted by Michele in California at 7:51 PM on February 27, 2013 [1 favorite]

At not-quite-2-years-old, my son named his stuffed Stegosaurus "Diarrhea" (video proof).

He's 4 and a half now, and that's still the name he gives to that dinosaur. Not in a disgusted way or anything; that's just the toy's name.
Always a source of hilarity when questions come up like "Did you leave Diarrhea in the car?"
posted by jozxyqk at 7:53 PM on February 27, 2013 [14 favorites]

When I was a kid I named my toy dinosaur Emily, which is my name. I have no idea why.

I also had a stuffed horse named Uni, because I thought it was a unicorn whose horn was missing. I was a teenager before I realized that it was intended to be a horse.
posted by insectosaurus at 7:58 PM on February 27, 2013

Talking puppy - a puppy that talks
Nasty Goblin's Bride - naked doll baby
Kitty Meow Peppy - cat
Cheetah - baby doll that sings
Fuzzy puppy - a dog. it's fuzzy
Bear bear bear - a bear
Black white kitty - a grey and black cat
posted by sacrifix at 7:58 PM on February 27, 2013 [1 favorite]

My sons favorite dog is named "doggie meow meow"
posted by katypickle at 8:00 PM on February 27, 2013 [1 favorite]

Boots, a stuffed dog given to my wee son by a neighbour lady when we moved away. The stuffed dog looked like her dog, so we named the stuffed dog after the real one. (Now we have a real cat named Boots because she has white feet.)
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 8:07 PM on February 27, 2013

My favorite little plastic hippopotamus was called "Popo". One day as we were on the road, I threw him out the window and said "Popo gone!" followed by pitching a fit.
posted by michellenoel at 8:11 PM on February 27, 2013 [2 favorites]

As a kid my favorite stuffed animal was Red Bear the red bear, and my brother's was Grey Rabbit the grey rabbit. Neither of us is currently employed in a creative field.
posted by domnit at 8:11 PM on February 27, 2013 [15 favorites]

My son's favorite animal is named Baby Mountain Lion. I'm sure you guess what kind of animal he is.

My daughter names everything Buttercup or some variation with cup always at the end.
posted by Sweetmag at 8:12 PM on February 27, 2013 [2 favorites]

My mother had a stuffed rabbit named Aloysius T. Schlabattengraffer. I've asked her where the name came from. She has no idea.
posted by komara at 8:13 PM on February 27, 2013 [1 favorite]

I had a mouse named mousy, which is not very original. It was named long before I can remember so I assume one of my parents named it.
Not quite the same, but my imaginary friends were named chick and soup. I thought I was clever.
posted by missriss89 at 8:17 PM on February 27, 2013

We have a cat called Kitty (she actually has a proper name, yet still gets called Kitty). My 15 month old son adores her and calls her Key as he can't pronounce his t's yet. He now thinks any animal or anything soft and fluffy, including his toys, are Key. Apparently Kitty is the generic name for anything he wants to cuddle.
posted by Jubey at 8:23 PM on February 27, 2013

Mine were all straightforward and literal. I really disliked both familiarly human and overly diminutive names for my stuffed friends.

Polar - a polar bear
Froggy - a frog
Bunny - a bunny
Husky - a husky dog
Pound Puppy - a pound puppy
Snake - a snake
Worm - a worm
Tiger - a tiger

I also really disliked stuffed animals that were boring enough to be of the typical teddy bear variety.
posted by superfem at 8:25 PM on February 27, 2013

At age two, my son stole a small, hello kitty doll from his big sister, named her Baby Kitty and at almost six, still has her every night. He also has a light blue blanket that he has had from birth named Nigh Nights. Both are a must for a good nights sleep.
posted by pearlybob at 8:25 PM on February 27, 2013

In Beverly Cleary's Ramona and Beezus books, Ramona names her doll Chevrolet, because she thinks it is the most beautiful name in the world. I thought this was slightly farfetched until a little girl of my acquaintance named her doll Celica. You can guess what kind of car her parents drove. When she told me the name of her doll, her dad just shrugged, like, "What can you do."
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 8:28 PM on February 27, 2013 [1 favorite]

My bear was Big Bear, my sister's was BearBear. My kids have George and Chester (both large-ish teddy bears). And there's a stuffed elephant called Thump and a stuffed airplane called Ooom, neither of which I am allowed to throw out/hand down even though the kids are now 15 and 21. (My rabbit puppet is named Oswald.)
posted by jlkr at 8:33 PM on February 27, 2013

My daughter has a stuffed cat that she named Moosha when she was about 3, which is what she used to call a neighbourhood cat whose name was actually Shaboo.

She's 10 now and too clever, so she has this stuffed dude that she calls Brocc Obama. She also has Carrot Burnett and Berry White. (I had to name Berry White for her, she was stumped.)
posted by looli at 8:35 PM on February 27, 2013 [1 favorite]

"Glowie" the glo worm.
"Huggie Bear" was a very soft, vaguely bearish-shaped being in a striped shirt and blue pants.

My son had 2 goldfish, "Spot" and "Little Spotty". They were just plain, generic goldfish without spots. The boy really wanted a dog.

A bit off-topic, maybe, but my daughter had a lot of "pretend" friends, e.g., "Pretend Eva", "Pretend Julia". She would occasionally come to me in tears to report that they wouldn't play with her. (Just so you know, she's 23 now and doesn't appear to have suffered long-term damage from this rejection.)

She also had an imaginary, apparently land-dwelling shark (no name) that she occasionally "lost". Once she insisted that I return to the car to fetch it for her. (I did so, btw, in the name of choosing my battles.)
posted by she's not there at 8:45 PM on February 27, 2013 [1 favorite]

My husband and I split when our daughter was 4. At first she was nervous about staying at dad's house, so I gave her a doggy with long hound dog ears to travel with her and keep her company - she named him Trooper. Eleven years later and she still sleeps with Trooper.
posted by kbar1 at 8:46 PM on February 27, 2013

I had a little plastic brachiosaurus called Brachio. (I believe my brother 'gave' it to me when he was born.) My teddy bear was imaginatively named Teddy, as was my brother's. There was also Diaper Doll, who was doll that played music if you wound it up. I think I decided it looked like it was wearing a diaper. Vitamin Doll was a doll whose teeth looked like vitamins. Obviously. There was a giraffe that was mostly my brother's that was named after something from some book, but I'm blanking on the name and the title.

I think we prized our blankets more than our stuffed animals, though. We each had a blanket called Bunny, because it had bunnies on. My brother's second blanket was called Yonna, because he couldn't say 'other' as a child. Mine was called Sheepie because, well, sheep.

My brother acquired a bunch of stuffed animal seals as an older child. The first one was called Sealy, but then he had to get more creative. I think the next was called Scarborough, because he got in Scarborough. There was also Skipton, I think because it was a place in England that started with S. And Otto, after Otto von Bismarck, for some reason. And a Humboldt penguin called Humboldt. And a dolphin called Adolph, from when he was old enough to make terrible puns in stuffed animal names.
posted by hoyland at 8:48 PM on February 27, 2013

Also, when I was pregnant with her younger brother, my then 2.5 year old daughter wanted to name him "Curtis Baker". "Baker" is not a family surname—didn't even know anyone with that name, as a matter of fact, nor did she know anyone named "Curtis".
posted by she's not there at 8:53 PM on February 27, 2013 [1 favorite]

My daughter had a stuffed cat named Cake. My niece has a stuffed bear named Purple Purple Boy Boy. He is pink.
posted by Rock Steady at 8:54 PM on February 27, 2013 [1 favorite]

When I was a little, I had a plastic rattle/squeak toy type thing in the shape of a lion's head called Lion. I also had a stuffed dog named Toysie, because he'd originally came with a shirt that said "I'm a Toys 'R' Us Kid." There was also a stuffed teddy bear that I called Freddie, but my younger sister renamed Monica after her best friend from preschool.

Other animals included a rainbow-striped snake (with felt forked tongue) that I called Mr. Worm and a polar bear that my sister won from a Coca Cola promotion at a grocery store that we named Cocoa. There was also the menagerie of crocheted animals my mom made us, named whatever the pattern had called them (George the Gorilla, Pat the Polar Bear, etc.).
posted by yuwtze at 9:07 PM on February 27, 2013

My kids are super-literal, which disappoints me slightly, as they tend to be hilariously random and imaginative about other stuff.
Teddy bear = "tebby bear"
Cat = "kitty"
The large penguin = "big penguin"
The small penguin "baby penguin"
etc.
posted by Joh at 9:23 PM on February 27, 2013

My 17-mo.-old daughter has a pink uglydoll named Debbie. I tried to name it Kevin and that caught on for her, but the way she pronounces Kevin is "Debbie," so my wife and I decided to just let it be Debbie instead.

She also has a stuffed pie named "Pie" and a bear named "Bee Bee" which we think is "brown bear" from the book.
posted by M.C. Lo-Carb! at 9:27 PM on February 27, 2013

My daughter named all of her stuffies either Rainbow or Sparkle. Her special blanket was called Special. Inexplicably, she also had, for a very long time, an imaginary restaurant called The Mechanical Flower. I don't know, either.
posted by MeghanC at 9:34 PM on February 27, 2013 [6 favorites]

I usually called my Cabbage Patch Dolls by the name given to them by the doll. Otherwise, I remember that my sister and I had dolls name Pink Baby and Orange Baby. Pink Baby wore pink and Orange Baby wore orange.

Something like 25 years later, I still have the aptly-named Bunny. It's a stuffed bunny.
posted by mibo at 9:59 PM on February 27, 2013

Stuffed Siamese cat named Kitchen. Named in the kitchen.

White fluffy cat named Ha-koo.

Son has a sheep originally called Big Sheep, shortened to Bidgie. Now a larger version is called Big Bidgie.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 10:03 PM on February 27, 2013

Teddy bear = Mister T, but we parents named him. That is the only doll that I remember having a name. The other gazillions just replicated namelessly in the closets and under the beds.

A hamster was called Hammy.
The second hamster was called Hammy 2.

*sigh*
posted by SLC Mom at 10:06 PM on February 27, 2013

I was the weird kid who was super literal with all names. The bear dressed in a nightcap and shirt whose paw you could press to play a sweet lullaby? Nighttime Bear. That Pooh Bear stuffed animal I had? Pooh Bear. It didn't make sense to me to name things creatively.
posted by These Birds of a Feather at 10:14 PM on February 27, 2013

When my son was about ten months old, we started calling his moose and bunny Odeedoh and Dotydoty after his baby talk, but we could never remember which was which. Now they're mostly just called Moose and Bunny, and they live in his crib with Monkey, Owl, Bear, and Other Bear. I'm not sure if he is too young for creative names (26 months) or more literal than other kids.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 10:15 PM on February 27, 2013

I was about four years old when I received a large, pillow-sized blue stuffed dog (big enough for me to nap on). I named him Snuffles, after Quick Draw McGraw's dog. My younger brother had a stuffed dog that he named Tree for some reason. He couldn't explain why then, and even today he remembers carrying Tree around and sleeping with him, but still doesn't know why he named him thusly.
posted by Oriole Adams at 10:21 PM on February 27, 2013

As a baby I was given a stuffed purple dog who originally had button eyes. Fearing a choking hazard, my mother removed the eyes and intended to sew on felt ones, but only got around to sewing one on. When I became old enough to talk, I promptly named the one-eyed dog One Eye And No Eye.
posted by jeudi at 10:44 PM on February 27, 2013

Mine as a kid were called:
Bebby (a baby doll that came in a box from France that said bébé ('baby'))
Turtle (stuffed toy turtle)
Cindy (my barbie alternative. The brand was called Cindy, so clearly that had to be her name).
Mizuko (stuffed toy cat. That was the brand name embroidered on her arse.)
Waistcoat Teddy (um, teddy bear wearing a waistcoat. I was a literal child, as you might be noticing.)
Suzydoll (I don't remember why. This was a doll my grandmother made me. She might have named it.)
Singing-and-talking-doll.
I also had toys that never got named, and some dolls that changed name from week to week.

My brother, on the other hand, had a toy rabbit called Wednesday, a bird called Scratch, and he named his pet lamb (not a toy) Lemonade. He was clearly the creative one.
posted by lollusc at 10:48 PM on February 27, 2013

My youngest has a stuffed groundhog named "Phil". She has a sock monkey collection, the first of which is named "Bob Tuschman" (yes, she named it after the food network VP of programming), the largest of which is named Nora Charles, and the rest all have names I can't remember.
posted by susanbeeswax at 12:24 AM on February 28, 2013

My son had a boy bear that he named "Chica". My daughter put a paper cup on the bear's hand and it became "Chica Hand of the Liver." When they took the cup off, it was "Chica Plain of the Liver."

OK, I need to know, where the hell did all that liver business come from?! Is it a reference to something or just a particularly wild and random-ass leap of your kids' imagination?

I mean, it sounds like something straight out of Game of Thrones.
posted by moody cow at 1:30 AM on February 28, 2013 [2 favorites]

Mine were Big Ted (named by my literal-minded parents) and Bilbo (I was reading The Hobbit and decided to name him after the next character to crop up in the chapter. I would have preferred 'Smaug' or 'Bullroarer Took', but rules are rules).
posted by inire at 1:31 AM on February 28, 2013

When Kinetic 1 was born (oh dear lord, 21 years ago. Excuse me, I have to go cry...okay, I'm better), it was Easter weekend. The stores were filled with lots of bunnies and lambies and other Easter-y animals.

Every year, Hallmark stores put out a new stuffed animal, and that year, there was a delightful pink and white lamb. About the size of an adult's hand. Nice and squishy and ready for cuddling.

Kinetic 1 got two of them, and they were placed in her bassinet.

Recognizing a good thing when I saw it, I took one of the Lambies out and put it away for safekeeping in case she ever lost Lambie 1. See, clever, huh? We'd have a replacement.

And Kinetic 1 took to Lambie. Oh, did she. She held that thing right up to her little baby nose, stroked it, sucked on it. Clutched it on hikes. Dropped it in mud. Dunked it into her pasta sauce.

It was pretty gross.

So Lambie 2 was subbed in while Lambie 1 got gently washed.

But here's the thing: Kinetic 1 is no dummy. Or at the very least, she's a lot smarter than her mother.

And Kinetic 2 would toddle around the apartment, not quite understanding that there were TWO Lambies and her baby was in the dryer, and she would scream at the top of her very capable lungs,

"WHERE IS SHE???",
"WHERE IS SHE???",
"WHERE IS SHE???",
"WHERE IS SHE???",

and "Ishie" was so named.
posted by kinetic at 3:15 AM on February 28, 2013 [3 favorites]

The two current faves are a meerkat named Buffalo and a sea turtle named Upa (pronounced OoO-pah). My son (5) is bilingual and most of his names are made up words that seem to land in between English and Portuguese.
posted by wallaby at 3:46 AM on February 28, 2013

My favorite stuffed animal was a cat I called Kamar. My parents couldn't figure out where I got this name. My explanation was simply "It came with it."

It remained a mystery until the cat needed to be washed, and my mom happened to glance at the tag on its leg. "Kamar" was the name of the toy manufacturer.
posted by Metroid Baby at 4:09 AM on February 28, 2013

My 8 year old son's best friend is Andy. Raggedy Andy, to be exact. When I was about 5 my babysitter made and gave my sister and I Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls. Over their hearts were our initials. Sis got the guy, I got the girl.

Fast forward tens of years later, and now we've got babies. She a girl, me a boy. We switched dolls and though my niece never did buddy up with her Ann my boy is absolutely in love with his Andy. He slept in his crib before he was old enough to control his arm movements and now he's our constant companion. He is missing an arm and a leg, has just a few sprouts of hair left, and has been stitched up so many times he looks like a proper Frankenstein. His fabric is so worn it's see through and his stuffing is mounded and bunched up into balls. I sometimes worry Andy might be carrying the Plague or some other ailment but so far, he's not killed us...yet. Friggin' Andy, I love that guy. (Also, the babysitter that made the doll now works at my son's school. He sees her everyday and she's seen Andy. It delights her that something she made 25 years ago is finally bringing joy to a child, regardless of how haggard he looks.)

Other than that, we've got Sport (named by my son, a puppy dog doll), Little Andy (Big Andy's little brother, we did not fly as a clean replacement when we tried it), and about a million Pokemon stuffed dolls (presumably originally named by someone in Japan who I'm positive was on drugs).
posted by youandiandaflame at 4:40 AM on February 28, 2013

Way back when, I had a wooden dog called Pluton (the name came from the box), a soft toy Scottish terrier called Scotty (one of those highly original names), and a soft bear called (of all things) Zucchini (I'm at a loss to decipher *that* motivation).
posted by Alice Russel-Wallace at 5:03 AM on February 28, 2013

I have a teddy bear named Chewbacca. (He does not resemble Chewbacca in any way, other than being furry.) My sister had a stuffed airplane named "Za"- for the sound the plane makes when it takes off.
posted by goodbyewaffles at 5:08 AM on February 28, 2013

Metroid Baby: "Kamar" was the name of the toy manufacturer.

That reminds me my daughter had a stuffed dog mysteriously named "Douglas" for the same reason.
posted by Rock Steady at 5:09 AM on February 28, 2013

The doggie is called "Foo Foo", because that's how she pronounces "wuff wuff".
I do love Foo Foo, though.
posted by Omnomnom at 5:22 AM on February 28, 2013

OK, I need to know, where the hell did all that liver business come from?! Is it a reference to something or just a particularly wild and random-ass leap of your kids' imagination?

I mean, it sounds like something straight out of Game of Thrones.
Wild and random-ass leap of imagination. We made Easy Bake Oven cookies once that she insisted on calling "Liver snaps" so I guess she just liked the word. If asked, they would both say, "Because he's got a cup on its HAND! So he's CHICA HAND OF THE LIVER!" The DUH was implied. She's 15 now and has no explanation. They would probably love Game of Thrones.
posted by artychoke at 5:31 AM on February 28, 2013 [1 favorite]

Our daughter's blanket is named Weebwa. We figured out a few weeks after she started yelling "weebwa! weebwa!" that she was trying to say "Ladybug" and tell us there was a ladybug on her blanket (we have about 5-6 months' worth of ladybug invasions a year at our house). Too late.

The rest of hers have their 'real' names (the stuffed Thomas the Tank Engine is Thomas, the stuffed Francesco Bernoulli is Francesco, etc).

Our son's lovey is named Bruin. We named him; he's still too young to name his lovies, except for his dump truck (and his pronunciation almost always leads to parental giggles).
posted by tigerjade at 5:45 AM on February 28, 2013

I still have my two bears from childhood, Brown Georgie - the bear is brown and I knew a girl named Georgina (though Brown Georgie is a boy) - and Lord & Taylor, also a boy. I don't know why I named him that, but L&T *is* my favorite store as an adult!
posted by Wet Hen at 5:50 AM on February 28, 2013

My daughter has "Snugglebunny" and "Shakeybunny", two stuffed bunnies, one that makes noise when you shake it and one that does not. I still have my childhood bunny, "Nittens", sitting on my dresser. I don't remember how I named it.
posted by molasses at 5:51 AM on February 28, 2013

My sister named our (live) cat Cuddlier Than My Blanket, but we called her Cuddles for short. We much later found Cuddles' "birth certificate," in my parents' attic which revealed that her middle name was Kristen (in honor of the neighbor/babysitter).
posted by Pax at 5:58 AM on February 28, 2013

Stuffed lion is "Lion."
posted by BurntHombre at 6:40 AM on February 28, 2013

My 3yo daughter's fave is a bunny named Dou-dou (which we named), but the animals she named are:
- Gupin the cat
- Puyin the kitten
- Ticky the raccoon
- Cheetah the leopard
- Bdam Kiki the cat (named after my grandma's cat, Madame Kiki)
- Night-night the rabbit
- Keeks the cat
- Yoyo the penguin (named after a clown)
- Geniyah the doll (named after a friend at school)
- R-chops the cat
posted by oh really at 6:45 AM on February 28, 2013

My 4 1/2 year old daughter starts with a fancy name, like Sparklejuice or Jimjam, then randomly changes it to a more straightforward name. I'm not sure why; it could be that her room is filled with stuffed animals and she can't keep track of them all. Her current favorites are Baby, for a baby doll, and variants of Baby, like Baby Unicorn, or Baby Dog. She does has a rubber snake named Carly, which seems to be the only one with a proper name.

My 22 month old son is quite literal, with a Pooh Bear and Doggie. We tried to give them some different names for variety, but he was having none of it.
posted by ElleElle at 6:53 AM on February 28, 2013

My teddy bear was called Sweet Baby James, later shortened to James Bear. My parents are James Taylor fans and I had a few-years-younger cousin named James, so it could have come from either of those.

My younger brother's bear was called Ted. This was his own nickname and our grandad's too, plus it was a teddy bear. When the bear lost his eye, he became One Eye Ted.

My youngest brother's bear was called Clum Bear. This was because the bear had a clum on his arm. What is a clum? Nobody apart from my brother knew, but he was quite certain about it, and the problem was only fixed when my mum put a plaster on Clum Bear's arm.
posted by daisyk at 7:04 AM on February 28, 2013

I had a little stuffed dog, "Doogie" and a doll, "Katie."
posted by magnetsphere at 7:08 AM on February 28, 2013

I had a little stuffed panda bear called "Apanda". I had misheard the name and called all panda bears "apandas" for quite some time.
posted by drunkonthemoon at 7:10 AM on February 28, 2013 [1 favorite]

I had a teddy called Squeakers... due to the squeaker in its tummy. I also had a pink elephant (I think it was wearing a hawaiian shirt?) that I named Andrew, because I thought I had to marry the neighbor boy (I took the cootie catcher game my older sister played very seriously), and decided I should grow fond of him (I thought I was required to marry him for the next two years, until someone explained that cootie catchers didn't actually predict the future and I was free to marry or not marry whomever I pleased).
posted by worstname at 7:22 AM on February 28, 2013

My daughter has a stuffed snake she named Pablo Pete, and a dog she called Ruffy. She says Ruffy is named for the sound of his bark. I have no idea why Pablo Pete got that name.

My son has a dolphin that he has named Dolphiny.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 7:23 AM on February 28, 2013

Oh, I also had a clown called..."Clowminga"...still got no idea where that name came from.
posted by drunkonthemoon at 7:24 AM on February 28, 2013

My son has a stuffed monkey he calls Doddy.
posted by agress at 7:25 AM on February 28, 2013

Response by poster: This is probably far enough down for me to throw in now: the child who is old enough to call his animals by name calls his first teddy "B" presumably short for bear because the larger teddy is "Big B", the panda is "Panda B", the white one is "Polar B", etc. But B is still the favorite.

He also had a stuffed bear given to him before his birth that my wife and I named Rupert after Stewie's bear on Family Guy and it stuck.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 7:25 AM on February 28, 2013 [1 favorite]

My two-year-old doesn't seem to be into naming things yet. There's "baby" for the baby, there's "Dollie" for the doll. All the animals are called by their regular animal name (except for Pooh and Purple Bear who is purple) but they are all, by and large, girls, just like herself (which I think is awesome). I got to introduce her to one of my treasured stuffed animals which still lives at Grammy's house -- Hunker. Hunker is a huge stuffed lion who apparently "hunked up the bed" by filling it up with his bigness and that's why I named him "Hunker" at her age. She loved this Hunker Lion but disagreed with me on whether Hunker was a boy or girl. I told her Hunker was a boy and she said, "Nope. Hunker is girl."
posted by amanda at 7:28 AM on February 28, 2013

It's not at all uncommon for really small kids to have short/nonsense names for their best fuzzy friends. That is, we had a bear that Dad and Mom called "Golden Bear," but Child called "Tsah" unmistakably from the moment she could vocalize. We have a pet frog with the name "Sut" from a year or two later, before we figured out that we shouldn't let her name things quiet yet. :) (The kitten became Milo by the power of parental suggestion.)
posted by acm at 8:02 AM on February 28, 2013

My most beloved bear was BearBear (technically BearBear II, a traumatizing fact my parents never revealed until my late teens). My sister's was Baby Beanie, who became quite the world traveler. Along with my brother, we had a fairly sizable stable of stuffed friends including Chubb the hippo, Sealick the giant seal, BB the brown bear, Rosie Posie the florescent bear, and Elmer and Fudd the twin monkies. My cousin had a "rabbit" named Bunji. I say "rabbit" because by the end of his life, Bunji was effectively unrecognizable as anything even resembling an animal, but Bunji was very well loved.
posted by Diagonalize at 8:59 AM on February 28, 2013 [1 favorite]

The brown bear is Brownie, the blue bear is Bluey, the tiny blue bear is Baby Bluey, etc.

I don't have the MOST creative children in the world, do I?
posted by pyjammy at 9:09 AM on February 28, 2013

We have a lot of things with names, and her best beloved favourite of all is a stuffed deer named Bambi (who is very REAL to her, as you can see by his wear.)

She also has a smaller deer named Tinky Whisper Dear. But my favourite names were a little bear she named Episode, Baby Naked Farty and, well, not a stuffed animal, but a sweet potato she carried around for a while and loved very much named Mr. Tut - who was a replacement for a smaller piece of sweet potato named "Turkey" she had a brief infatuation with. She also had a speech impediment for a while, so a stuffed moose we called "Schmelvin" was called "Pelvin." A little stuffed Basset Hound she had was called "Smally", as it was a littler version of our real dog, Molly.
posted by peagood at 9:38 AM on February 28, 2013 [3 favorites]

When I was a kid, my favorite animal was Kidda a stuffed kitty.

I have no idea what the deal with the name was, but that's what occured and that was her name.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 9:47 AM on February 28, 2013

My 4-year-old's best dolly is a blanket rabbit. Her name is My-my. She named it that some time before she turned 2 and was speaking regularly.

I had Singing Bear. He was a stuffed lamb, who sort of looks like a bear, that played "Rock-a-Bye-Baby."
posted by FergieBelle at 12:55 PM on February 28, 2013 [1 favorite]

My younger brother had a rabbit puppet which he loved to death, named Flippity-Flop.
posted by Rash at 2:34 PM on February 28, 2013

My daughter's Care Bear is named Pull. The toy has a string to pull to start the music box, which is how it all got started.
posted by headspace at 2:56 PM on February 28, 2013

Looking back on it, I was not particularly imaginative as a child when it came to stuffed animal names. I had a Winnie the Pooh known as Pooh Bear, a simple stuffed chicken my mother made known as Birdie Roostertail, and a small stuffed chickadee I made called Birdie 2.

I also had an enormous (24" tall or so) stuffed rat with a nightcap on called Great Rat. My mother tells me that I named it that after the punch line of a now-forgotten joke that my grandfather told the night he or my dad won the rat at a carnival. (The punchline went "That was a great rat!" but we don't remember anything else, other than we think the person uttering the punch line was a prisoner who had eaten said rat.)
posted by telophase at 6:00 PM on February 28, 2013

Our boys, 4 and 2, have:

Applebapple - a large Ikea stuffed dog
Doggie - a small stuffed dog
DipDop - a blue bear I bought as a teenager but was unnamed until I pulled it out of storage upon having my own kids
Deeno- a dinosaur
Wolfie - a stuffed husky
Nathan Horton - a bear.
posted by kpht at 6:44 PM on February 28, 2013

At 3 my son received a pink bear who he promptly named Kitty Cat. At about the same age my daughter received a bunny rabbit she christened Vulva. The children older and wiser now, but the names endure and I will never, ever let them go.
posted by Cuke at 8:15 PM on February 28, 2013 [4 favorites]

As a child, my husband named his bear "My Friend My Bear" because... well, he was his friend and his bear. Our almost-three-year-old now loves My Friend My Bear, and it tickles me that the name stuck.
posted by meggan at 2:09 PM on March 1, 2013 [1 favorite]

I had a bear named Bear. My younger sister had a bear named Bearbie. My youngest sister had a rabbit called "Chelsea Loomer." We have no idea where that came from.
posted by betty botter at 4:38 PM on March 3, 2013