Name  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

This page Name is part of the linguistics series.
Illustration: a close-up of a mouth in the film The Big Swallow (1901)

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A name is a label for a human, thing, place, product (as in a brand name) and even an idea or concept, normally used to distinguish one from another.

It is a word or term used for identification. Names can identify a class or category of things, or a single thing, either uniquely, or within a given context. A personal name identifies a specific unique and identifiable individual person, and may or may not include a middle name. The name of a specific entity is sometimes called a proper name (although that term has a philosophical meaning also) and is a proper noun. Other nouns are sometimes, more loosely, called names; an older term for them, now obsolete, is "general names". A name can be given to a person, place, or thing; for example, parents can give their child a name or scientist can give an element a name.

Caution must be exercised when translating, for there are ways that one language may prefer one type of name over another. A feudal naming habit is used sometimes in other languages: the French sometimes refer to Aristotle as "le Stagirite" from one spelling of his place of birth, and English speakers often refer to Shakespeare as "The Bard", recognizing him as a paragon writer of the language. Also, claims to preference or authority can be refuted: the British did not refer to Louis-Napoleon as Napoleon III during his rule.

See also

• Anthroponymy
• Given name
• Most popular given names
• Name at birth
• Naming and Necessity
• Name letter effect
• Nickname
• Number names
• Onomastics
• Palindromic name, such as Anna, Bob, Eve, Hannah, Nan, and Otto.
• Patronymic
• Personal name
• Personally identifiable information
• Posthumous name
• Proper name
• Pseudonym
• Regnal name
• Surname
• What's in a name?