I was just looking at my American Girl encyclopedia and saw some early sketches for "Kirsten." When I used a loop magnifying glass to zoom in on the sketch, it said, "Rebecca." I wanted to know more, so I researched it and nothing was shown. Photos of the book and page are attached below. What name do you like better?Sorry that you can't see the second photo very well. The letters are so small so it is kind of blurry.
Kirsten's original name was supposed to be Rebecca. But they changed the name to Kirsten. This Rebecca character was supposed to be Norwegian instead of Sweden. The name Rebecca was eventually used for American Girl's first ever Jewish American historical who lived in the year 1914 and has desires to be an actress. It is absolutely wonderful to see all these prototypes to see what ideas and concepts American Girl originally had for a character.