Toys, names and personalities

Post Reply New Topic

The other currently active thread about toys made me think of a topic I have been meaning to post ever since it came up in a thread here some years ago.

In another thread toys came up, and I mentioned my toys having names and personalities which it seemed the person I talked to couldn't relate to.


So the thing is, every single toy I had (plushies, cars, dolls, animals), every single one them had a set personality. Some were nice, some arrogant, some got angry easily, some were brave, some were wimps, some were popular, some were whipping boys.

But no matter what kind of pretend game I had with them, they all had a set core personality (albeit not necessarily very deep, you could always somewhat predict them). All sorts of things could happen in my games, but the toys were the same personalities
Apparently other kids wouldn't do that, but could have their toys be anything and act any how.

How did you guys play in that fashion? Set personalities/ traits, or toys would be whatever you wanted them to be?


Second question: Did you name your toys?

I would always name my plushies, dolls, animals, MLPs, etc
Occasionally I would rename them, but usually they could keep their names. Names were always very important to me, so the name had to fit them perfectly.


Final question: when did you stop playing with toys?

For me, I played with toys regularly my first 9 years. The year I was 10 it gradually became less and I only played a few times when I was 11. I even remember the last time. I was at my grandparents's (where I had some toys), and my grandfather said that I hadn't played with Pink's orphanage for a long time now. I realized he was right and brought it out and played with it. I never played again.
I never felt that I had to quit playing, it was just a natural decline.

Sometimes I'd still play mock fighting and chase games with other kids, but toys never came up again.

I'd say I stopped playing with toys when I was about 13, but when my younger cousins came to my house I'd get the toys I still had and play with my younger cousins.

I named some of my dolls and teddies. My dolls we're usually named after members of my family, and my teddies were named based on what they looked like. The only teddy that never got a name was actually the bear I was 'closest' to, for some reason. But he has a name now - my boyfriend came up with a name and the name stuck.

Pretty much all of my toys - dolls, stuffed animals, MLP, model horses etc had names and personalities. It was hard for me at times to let a friend play with them and let them give them a name and personality for us to play together. I'm not sure if it was a possessive thing or me just being anal. lol

I stopped playing with others around 12, but I think I did carry on by myself for a bit longer. It was different than when I'd played before. More a thing where I'd look at a doll or two and then have the play carry out in my head.

* lol yeah, it was hard not to protest when playmates would have my toys do or say things they wouldn't really do!


thanks for your replies and votes so far, everyone

Would be very interested to see the male/female breakdown of the answers, as well as a breakdown by adult personality type. I expect it would be highly non-random.

I don't think I ever really "played" with toys. I had collections of things, some of which would be regarded as toys, but all I ever did with them was to arrange them into displays or sort them into categories.

People used to buy me cuddly animals but I never did anything with them. They didn't have names or personalities. They weren't interesting to me at all really perhaps because they bore little resemblance to real animals.

Much of my childhood actually involved spending time outside by myself, studying the stuff that lived in the garden, the woods, or the rock pools at the beach. Most of my time at home was spent looking through my dad's collection of natural history books rather than playing with stuff.

yeah that could be interesting.
Maybe someone should make such a thread....

I had some German Steiff toys with names. My favorite was a Siamese, Cosy Siam.

Are you my missing twin?

Question 1: My toys didn't have set personalities, per say. There was one personality, and it transferred to whatever toy I was playing with that the moment. Like a hivemind. Huh. That sounds kind of creepy, in retrospect. That one personality was very distinct, though, and had an extensive backstory that developed from the time I was four up until I stopped playing. Only once in my life did I change the personality of the toy hivemind (I guess I have to call it that), and it was a really solemn thing for me when I was nine, because I told myself for a while that the first personality was "gone" and now the new personality was its son and had taken its place. Looking back, I was a weird kid.

Question 2: The toys themselves had names that didn't change, which I just used to refer to them as objects. But the personality they comprised had a name that changed pretty often, especially when I was a little older and came across names in books that I fell in love with.

Question 3: It's hard to say, because it kind of petered off slowly. I think I stopped playing in most senses of the word when I was almost fourteen. I only stopped then because I was told that I had to. I genuinely think that I would've continued for a long time afterwards if it had been acceptable in my family. Most of my siblings stopped playing by the time they were eight, though, so I was considered an oddball.

My toys that had set names & personalities were toys that were modeled after specif characters like action figures of BatMan, the Ninja Turtles, G.I. Joe figures ect.

My older brother collected star trek action figures, and I really liked the William Riker toy, but I renamed him Donald Gweezer. He'd always be the dufus clown fool who would cause a colossal catastrophe for everyone.

Me too, and still do. Some talk, some don't. some only talk to me and I quote them. They prefer to be called nonbios, and they hate the word stuffed, htough plushie is ok when it fits. Fnord and Harvee are the stars, and still chat ont he phone with mymother every day. no one else wants ot play wiht them much. The oldest is Tiger the Leopard-I got him for Christmas when i was 2. I say they are ventriloquist-their voices come form me, and you never see their lips moving.

A drawing of Harvee by Harvee himself, is my prfile pic and i got the name little gator in honor of him. He has been married twice(Karmin Gator and Cleopatra the Egyptian goddess), and has some kids(Alfee and Lizardora) and eggs(andy, mandy, Brandy, candy, randy and sandy, plus a matchbox car named Otto), all gators or crocodiles.

Fnord is not any particlar earthly animal, and has been called a gator, frog, dragon and alligator. It's bright blue and white, omnigenderd, and accepts all pronouns.
.

I used to wonderif I had multiple personalities and that was the way they manisfested. At least 2 therapists have said if I know i'm doing it and can conrtol it, I shouldn't worry. But sometimes one of them will say somethign funny even I hadn't expected.

Even Roy G. Biv, the plastic key fob, has a perosnailty.

I still add to the collection. Precious the snarling Dragon was a prenet for my 60th birthday.

I like to call my self-made toy German helmet Schultz.

All of my toys had names. I named all my dolls Amy but everything else had names too -- even mechanical toys like my dolls' pram or my roller skates.

Everything had a 'vibe' such as friendly or mean, if not a fully-developed personality, voice and backstory.

Attributing personalities to objects is one form of synaesthesia. I have virtually all forms of synaesthesia so I give colours and personalities to letters or numbers as well. This isn't the best link but it does explain the connection with synaesthesia and your original question:

http://neurowiki2014.wikidot.com/individual:personification-based-synesthesia

I stopped playing with toys when I was 12. I thought my friend might see my ragdoll collection and tease me, so I wrote curse words on them in marker, and cut them up. I thought I was being cool. I regret it because my friend never did come to my house or see them.

having children was a good pretext to play, with or without toys, again

i rather played with the toddlers than sit with other mothers, really that's utterly boring nonsense, noone knows what they're doing, the eternal pretence of ignorance, oh yeah that makes for great conversation,
oh but that's not anyway interesting conversation now, is it?
the ladies of the day-playcenter wanted to keep me, i was playing with the kiddies instead of monopolizing their time,

but in rl people don't like you decide yourself, it must pass the mutual approval treshold- why ???????????