I am writing a story about my Barbie do I use a capital

Question

I am doing an assignment and I have to say my barbie doll. Would the word barbie be a capital?

Answer 1

You should capitalise 'Barbie' in 'Barbie doll', because that is how the dictionary styles the word. Also, a 'barbie' refers informally to a barbecue in Australian English.

Answer 2

Yes, you should use the capital. "Barbie" is a trademarked product:

Mattel trademarks

Chicago Manual of Style says that trademarked names should be capitalized:

Chicago Manual of Style: Registered Trademarks

Answer 3

There are different thoughts here. First, let's define "b/Barbie doll".

1. Barbie® is a brand name owned by Mattel that includes everything from dolls to iPhone cases to a driveable dune buggy (I so wanted one of those as a kid).
   • A Barbie® doll is a doll sold under the Barbie® brand name.
2. The Barbie universe is a fictional world the stories of the Barbie® dolls are set in. I don't know what kind of canon exists for this universe, or how tightly such canon is set, but it exists at some level.
   • Since the dolls represent real humans inside the Barbie universe, I don't think it makes much sense to talk about "Barbie dolls" in this context.
3. Barbie is the name of a fictional character in the Barbie universe. Presumably, the Barbie® brand name is based on the Barbie character.
   • A Barbie doll is any doll representing the Barbie character.
   • A Barbie doll could be any doll named Barbie, or a doll representing any other character named Barbie, but this is unlikely in practice.
   • A Barbie doll doesn't have to be a Barbie®-brand doll, but generally is.
4. "Barbie" can generically refer to any Barbie®-like product, fashion, or other thing.
   • "Barbie doll" could refer to an extremely thin, possibly anorexic, fashion model, or anyone else with atypical proportions, especially in the context of said proportions being extreme and in-fashion.
   • "Barbie doll" could refer to role-playing or other acting in a manner consistent with children playing with Barbie® dolls.
   • "barbie doll" could refer to any kind of children's doll intended to be played with in a role-play manner, especially if the doll is targeted at girls¹, involves fashion and/or makeup, is approximately a foot tall, and/or is modeled with exaggerated or non-realistic proportions.

There are probably other definitions that make sense here, but this should be good enough to get the point across.

For most of these uses, the name should be capitalized as "Barbie", and possibly have a registered trademark symbol like "Barbie®" or "Barbie™" ^{2 3}.

For the generic use, the word should probably be the lower-case "barbie doll". This follows the general trend⁴ of lower-casing "velcro", "xerox" and other brand names that have become general-purpose words, except when used to explicitly refer to the brand or product the word came from. Note that the generic use can still apply to Barbie®-brand dolls if it's unimportant what brand the dolls are. For example, I could say, "I used to launch my sister's barbie dolls in the air with model rockets so they could be astronauts", even though my sister had actual Barbie® dolls, because it was the act of launching dolls on rockets that's important, not the brand name.

If you want to be accurate while avoiding controversy, you could refer to non-Barbie® barbie dolls as "fashion dolls", "action figures", "action dolls", "children's dolls", "girls' dolls" ¹, "family dolls", or something similar, just as people "correctly" refer to velcro as "hook and loop fastener". However, the concept of a "barbie doll" is much more specific than these terms; "action figures/dolls" could refer to soldiers like G.I. Joe, "children's/girl's dolls" could refer to baby dolls, etc.

Personally, I find "fashion doll", from the Wikipedia article on Barbie, to be the best generic match to the Barbie concept. According to Wikipedia, the original Barbie doll was marketed as a "Teen-age Fashion Model", and the Barbie® website currently considers Barbie to be "the ultimate fashion icon" ³, so it seems Mattel would probably agree with this term.

_{¹ Not that I would ever advocate gender-specific toys or playstyles. Nor am I suggesting girls don't play with G.I. Joes or Legos, or that boys don't play with Barbie dolls and Fisher Price kitchen sets. But the Barbie® line-up has historically been targeted at and marketed for female children.}

_{² In general, I would avoid the symbol except when initially introducing the brand name just because it looks really annoying in practice, but it's not inherently wrong to write it everywhere. An exception I'd make is a document where the distinction between the Barbie character and the Barbie® brand is consistently necessary, such as this answer. Note that even the Chicago Manual of Style, which disagrees with ever using a lower-case for things like "I googled it", agrees that trademark symbols can be omitted for typical writing.}

_{³ I'm not sure the distinction between "Barbie™" and "Barbie®" in practice, but I've seen both on Mattel's site.}

_{Welcome to The Barbie™ Collection! Find the latest Barbie® dolls and accessories for Barbie doll collectors and fans of Barbie, the ultimate fashion icon!}

_{⁴ This practice is still highly contested, especially by the trademark holders. But the practice itself is quite real.}