This study aims to conceptually analyze the relationship between anthropomorphism and symbolization in children’s play settings. Anthropomorphism refers to the cognitive process of attributing human psychological properties to nonhuman entities, whereas symbolization refers to a representational process in which one object is used to represent another object or meaning. Although these two cognitive processes have been reported to co-occur in play and imaginative activities across development, attempts to systematically analyze their relationship have been limited because they have been studied separately within different research traditions. This study reviewed relevant research traditions—including anthropomorphism, representation, social cognition, and developmental research—to analyze the relationship between the two cognitive processes in children’s play settings. The analysis suggests that the two processes are conceptually distinct and serve different cognitive functions. Based on this distinction, this study further proposes that their conditional linkage in children’s play settings can be examined through three conditions: metarepresentational capacity, interactional contexts involving nonhuman entities, and the selective activation of agentive interpretation. Based on this analysis, this study proposes their relationship as a conditional linkage in children’s play settings while maintaining their conceptual distinction.