We had a discussion about Jessie and Bullseye- that perhaps Woody or Jessie had phrases that dealt with their names and Bullseye’s name.
But how does Andy know Hamm? And Slink for that matter- not “Silky Dog”, but Slink.
[spoil]In the flashback scene, he writes “Hamm” and “Slink’s butt” on the height chart on his door[/spoil]. There is no way for him to know those names unless the toys were labeled as such when he originally received them -Omar
He made up those nicknames for them, and the toys adapted them. They might not have necessarily been Evil Dr. Porkchop and force-field dog in every single one of his playtimes.
Aw, Bryko, you beat me too it! 
Its because those are the names he gave them. Its as simple as that. In fact he probably named Rex himself too (he probably came labeled as ‘Tyrannosaurus’).
I think Bonnie named all of her toys herself too, except Totoro, and maybe Chuckles.
I’m guessing they were labled as such when the toys were originally purchased for him. I know that the real and retro Slinky Dog box has his name on it.
Then I’m guessing “Slink” just developed as a nick name that everyone, the toys and Andy, uses. It isn’t too hard to see where it would have come from.
Of course, if the names were not identified originally, Andy probably named the toys himself. Then those specific toys must have accepted the name and all the other toys starting calling it by them. I always imagined when I was little that my toy and stuffed animals used the names I gave them.
I agree. Currently existing toys, like Slinky, would’ve had it labeled, while it’s known for a fact that Rex was also labeled. Hamm probably was as well, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Andy just gave him that nickname.
I think Andy just named them himself.
Hamm is a piggy bank. Ham is made from pigs. It doesn’t seem like a huge leap of logic for Andy to decide to call his piggy bank “Hamm” (although I guess it is a little disturbing since ham is the food product from pigs).
And Slinky is a “slinky” dog-toy. That’s about as original as Andy calling a robot toy “Robot” (or Robbie or something similar). I figure Andy just liked the name Slinky since it was descriptive of the toy and a unique “name”.
Or Andy’s mum could have “named” the toys when he was smaller? I think my mum and I would often come up with “names” for no-name toys together, although some of them I just named myself (although I wasn’t as creative as Andy and I’d just name them regular “human” names).
He named them that. Mabey Hamm was the name of Hamm’s product.
That sounds logical. It sounds like Mr. Lasseter considers the TSC boxes canon, so that might explain Rex.
Well, on Pixar’s Facebook, they had an advertisment for Trixie, and it clearly lables her name (also mentioning the Tyrannosaurus, Velociraptor, and a few others). So yeah, Rex would have his name on his box (the TSC idea also never hit me, but it’s still appliable).