, and even appearances in"Toy Story 3." They're hitting the big screens again this summer in Greta Gerwig's upcoming"Barbie" movie.
But the real-life Barbie and Ken were never a couple. The plastic dolls were actually named after a sister and brother – the children of Mattel cofounder and Barbie creator Ruth Handler.Throughout the 1950s, Handler had wanted to make a fashion doll for girls too old for baby dolls whose play was limited by the paper dolls popular at the time.
Handler had wanted to name the doll after her daughter's nickname, Babs. But that had already been taken – and so had Barbara. So Handler settled for Barbie"fairly early in the design process ... in honor of our daughter, of course, whose innocent play with adult paper dolls had inspired the idea," Handler wrote in her autobiography"Dream Doll," and gave her the full name Barbara Millicent Roberts.in 1989, "I would have never come up with the idea for the doll.
Almost immediately after Barbie hit toy shop shelves in 1959, Mattel started receiving"hundreds of letters from little girls begging us to make a boyfriend for Barbie," Handler wrote.So a boyfriend for Barbie came out two years later in 1961. Just as she'd name Barbie for her daughter, Ken was named for Handler's son. Ken sold for $3.50 and was