It is a common misconception that the beloved bear, Winnie-the-Pooh was a direct representation of A. A. Milne's son's (Christopher Robin's) childhood teddy bear. In truth, both his name and the likeness he bore were the inspirations of outside sources.

The image of Pooh from the classic books was actually not based on Christopher Robin's bear, instead Milne's illustrator and partner, E. H. Shepard, opted to ignore the sketch studies he had made from Milne's teddy and use his own son's (Graham's) bear, 'Growler' as the model for the famous books.

When Pooh made his first appearance in When We Were Young, he went by the moniker of Mr. Edward Bear. It was a swan, in fact, that was given the name 'Pooh'. Christoper Robin felt that 'Pooh' was a perfect name for a swan, because if you called him and he didn't come to you, people would believe that you were simply dismissing the snobbish water fowl. When he parted ways with the swan, however, he decided to take the name with him, stating that he didn't feel the animal would want it anymore. In the following book, Winnie-the-Pooh, the story swing's it's main focus to the hardly used supporting character from the previous work, Mr. Edward Bear. In the beginning of the story, Edward exclaims that his name is too common and that he would like an exciting new name all to himself. Almost immediately and without much contemplation, Christopher Robin offered him the name Winnie-the-Pooh, which he happily accepted, and from that day forward...he was. The 'Winnie' part of Bear's name was borrowed from a famous bear who lived at the London Zoo.

A couple of interesting tidbits: The Pooh characters Rabbit and Owl were the only two not based on childhood toys, but the actual animals. All of the original toys with the exception of Roo (who was lost somewhere near Milne's home in Sussex, England) now reside at the Donnell branch of the New York City Public Library. Winnie-the-Pooh was actually first introduced (as Mr. Edward Bear) in Milne's poem 'Teddy Bear', which is an except from When We Were Young (1924).