Name

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Names of 2002 Bali bombings victims in Indonesia Balinese ground zero.JPG
Names of 2002 Bali bombings victims in Indonesia

A name is a term used for identification by an external observer. They can identify a class or category of things, or a single thing, either uniquely, or within a given context. The entity identified by a name is called its referent. A personal name identifies, not necessarily uniquely, a specific individual human. The name of a specific entity is sometimes called a proper name (although that term has a philosophical meaning as well) and is, when consisting of only one word, a proper noun. Other nouns are sometimes called "common names" or (obsolete) "general names". A name can be given to a person, place, or thing; for example, parents can give their child a name or a scientist can give an element a name.

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Etymology

The word name comes from Old English nama; cognate with Old High German (OHG) namo, Sanskrit नामन् (nāman), Latin nomen , Greek ὄνομα (onoma), and Persian نام (nâm), from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) *h₁nómn̥. [1] Outside Indo-European, it can be connected to Proto-Uralic *nime.

Naming conventions

A naming convention is a set of agreed, stipulated, or generally accepted standards, norms, social norms, or criteria for naming things.

Parents may follow a naming convention when selecting names for their children. Some have chosen alphabetical names by birth order. In some East Asian cultures it is common for one syllable in a two-syllable given name to be a generation name which is the same for immediate siblings. In many cultures it is common for the son to be named after the father or a grandfather. In certain African cultures, such as in Cameroon, the eldest son gets the family name for his given name. In other cultures, the name may include the place of residence, or the place of birth.

Major naming conventions include:

Products may follow a naming convention. Automobiles typically have a binomial name, a "make" (manufacturer) and a "model", in addition to a model year, such as a 2007 Chevrolet Corvette. Sometimes there is a name for the car's "decoration level" or "trim line" as well: e.g., Cadillac Escalade EXT Platinum , after the precious metal. Computers often have increasing numbers in their names to signify the next generation.

Courses at schools typically follow a naming convention: an abbreviation for the subject area and then a number ordered by increasing level of difficulty.

Many numbers (e.g., bank accounts, government IDs, credit cards, etc.) are not random but have an internal structure and convention. Virtually all organizations that assign names or numbers will follow some convention in generating these identifiers. Airline flight numbers, Space Shuttle flight numbers, even phone numbers all have an internal convention.

Personal name

A signature is a person's own handwritten name A History of Barrington, Rhode Island - Autographs.jpg
A signature is a person's own handwritten name

A personal name is an identifying word or words by which an individual is intimately known or designated. [2] In many countries, it is traditional for individuals to have a personal name (also called a given name or first name) and a surname (also called a last name or family name because it is shared by members of the same family). [3] Some people have two surnames, one inherited from each parent. In most of Europe and the Americas, the given name typically comes before the surname, whereas in parts of Asia and Hungary the surname comes before the given name. In some cultures it is traditional for a woman to take her husband's surname when she gets married.

A common practice in many countries is patronym which means that a component of a personal name is based on the given name of one's father. A less common practice in countries is matronym which means that a component of a personal name is based on the given name of one's mother. In some East Asian cultures, it is traditional for given names to include a generation name, a syllable shared between siblings and cousins of the same generation.

Middle names are also used by many people as a third identifier, and can be chosen for personal reasons including signifying relationships, preserving pre-marital/maiden names (a popular practice in the United States), and to perpetuate family names. The practice of using middle names dates back to ancient Rome, where it was common for members of the elite to have a praenomen (a personal name), a nomen (a family name, not exactly used the way middle names are used today), and a cognomen (a name representing an individual attribute or the specific branch of a person's family). [4] Middle names eventually fell out of use, but regained popularity in Europe during the nineteenth century. [4]

Besides first, middle, and last names, individuals may also have nicknames, aliases, or titles. Nicknames are informal names used by friends or family to refer to a person ("Chris" may be used as a short form of the personal name "Christopher"). A person may choose to use an alias, or a fake name, instead of their real name, possibly to protect or obscure their identity. People may also have titles designating their role in an institution or profession (members of royal families may use various terms such as king, Queen, duke, or duchess to signify their positions of authority or their relation to the throne). [3]

Names of names

In onomastic terminology, personal names of men are called andronyms (from Ancient Greek ἀνήρ / man, and ὄνομα / name), [5] while personal names of women are called gynonyms (from Ancient Greek γυνή / woman, and ὄνομα / name). [6]

Names of humans (anthroponyms)
Name of ...Name of name
Full name of a person Personal name
First name of a person Given name
Family name Surname
Residents of a locality Demonym
Ethnic group Ethnonym
False or assumed name Pseudonym
Pseudonym of an author Pen name
Pseudonym of a performer Stage name
Other names -onym-suffixed words
Names of non-human entities
Name of a...Name of name
Any geographical object Toponym
Body of water Hydronym
Mountain or hill Oronym
Region or country Choronym
Any inhabited locality Econym
VillageComonym
Town or cityAstionym
Cosmic objectCosmonym
StarAstronym
Other names -onym-suffixed words

Brand names

Developing a name for a brand or product is heavily influenced by marketing research and strategy to be appealing and marketable. The brand name is often a neologism or pseudoword, such as Kodak or Sony.

Religious names

Two charts from an Arabic copy of the Secretum Secretorum for determining whether a person will live or die based on the numerical value of the patient's name. Secret of secrets a.jpg
Two charts from an Arabic copy of the Secretum Secretorum for determining whether a person will live or die based on the numerical value of the patient's name.

In the ancient world, particularly in the ancient near-east (Israel, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Persia) names were thought to be extremely powerful and act, in some ways, as a separate manifestation of a person or deity. [7] This viewpoint is responsible both for the reluctance to use the proper name of God in Hebrew writing or speech, as well as the common understanding in ancient magic that magical rituals had to be carried out "in [someone's] name". By invoking a god or spirit by name, one was thought to be able to summon that spirit's power for some kind of miracle or magic (see Luke 9:49, in which the disciples claim to have seen a man driving out demons using the name of Jesus). This understanding passed into later religious tradition, for example the stipulation in Catholic exorcism that the demon cannot be expelled until the exorcist has forced it to give up its name, at which point the name may be used in a stern command which will drive the demon away.

Biblical names

In the Old Testament, the names of individuals are meaningful, and a change of name indicates a change of status. For example, the patriarch Abram and his wife Sarai were renamed "Abraham" and "Sarah" at the institution of the Abrahamic covenant (Genesis 17:4, 17:15). Simon was renamed Peter when he was given the Keys to Heaven. This is recounted in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 16, which according to Roman Catholic teaching [8] was when Jesus promised to Saint Peter the power to take binding actions. [9] Proper names are "saturated with meaning". [10]

Throughout the Bible, characters are given names at birth that reflect something of significance or describe the course of their lives. For example: Solomon meant peace, [11] and the king with that name was the first whose reign was without war. [12] Likewise, Joseph named his firstborn son Manasseh (Hebrew: "causing to forget")(Genesis 41:51); when Joseph also said, "God has made me forget all my troubles and everyone in my father's family." Biblical Jewish people did not have surnames which were passed from generation to generation. However, they were typically known as the child of their father. For example: דוד בן ישי (David ben Yishay) meaning, David, son of Jesse (1 Samuel 17:12,58). Today, this style of name is still used in Jewish religious rites.

Indian name

Indian names are based on a variety of systems and naming conventions, which vary from region to region. Names are also influenced by religion and caste and may come from epics. India's population speaks a wide variety of languages and nearly every major religion in the world has a following in India. This variety makes for subtle, often confusing, differences in names and naming styles. Due to historical Indian cultural influences, several names across South and Southeast Asia are influenced by or adapted from Indian names or words.

For some Indians, their birth name is different from their official name; the birth name starts with a randomly selected name from the person's horoscope (based on the nakshatra or lunar mansion corresponding to the person's birth).

Many children are given three names, sometimes as a part of religious teaching.

Quranic names (Arabic names)

We can see many Arabic names in the Quran and in Muslim people, such as Allah, Muhammad, Khwaja, Ismail, Mehboob, Suhelahmed, Shoheb Ameena, Aaisha, Sameena, Rumana, Swaleha, etc. The names Mohammed and Ahmed are the same, for example Suhel Ahmad or Mohammad Suhel are the same. There are many similar names in Islam and Christianity, such as Yosef (Islamic)/Joseph (Christian), Adam/Adam, Dawood/David, Rumana/Romana, Maryam/Mary, Nuh/Noah, etc.

Name use by animals and plants

The use of personal names is not unique to humans. Dolphins [13] and green-rumped parrotlets [14] also use symbolic names to address contact calls to specific individuals. Individual dolphins have distinctive signature whistles, to which they will respond even when there is no other information to clarify which dolphin is being referred to.

Named entities

In information extraction, a named entity is a real-world object, such as a person, location, organization, product, etc., that can be denoted with a proper name. It can be abstract or have a physical existence. Examples of named entities include Barack Obama, New York City, Volkswagen Golf, or anything else that can be named. Named entities can simply be viewed as entity instances (e.g., New York City is an instance of a city).

From a historical perspective, the term Named Entity was coined during the MUC-6 evaluation campaign [15] and contained ENAMEX (entity name expressions e.g. persons, locations and organizations) and NUMEX (numerical expression).

A more formal definition can be derived from the rigid designator by Saul Kripke. In the expression "Named Entity", the word "Named" aims to restrict the possible set of entities to only those for which one or many rigid designators stands for the referent. [16] A designator is rigid when it designates the same thing in every possible world. On the contrary, flaccid designators may designate different things in different possible worlds.

As an example, consider the sentence, "Biden is the president of the United States". Both "Biden" and the "United States" are named entities since they refer to specific objects (Joe Biden and United States). However, "president" is not a named entity since it can be used to refer to many different objects in different worlds (in different presidential periods referring to different persons, or even in different countries or organizations referring to different people). Rigid designators usually include proper names as well as certain natural terms like biological species and substances.

There is also a general agreement in the Named Entity Recognition community to consider temporal and numerical expressions as named entities, such as amounts of money and other types of units, which may violate the rigid designator perspective.

The task of recognizing named entities in text is Named Entity Recognition while the task of determining the identity of the named entities mentioned in text is called Named Entity Disambiguation. Both tasks require dedicated algorithms and resources to be addressed. [17]

See also

Related Research Articles

Surname conventions and laws vary around the world. This article gives an overview of surnames around the world.

Over the course of some fourteen centuries, the Romans and other peoples of Italy employed a system of nomenclature that differed from that used by other cultures of Europe and the Mediterranean Sea, consisting of a combination of personal and family names. Although conventionally referred to as the tria nomina, the combination of praenomen, nomen, and cognomen that have come to be regarded as the basic elements of the Roman name in fact represent a continuous process of development, from at least the seventh century BC to the end of the seventh century AD. The names that developed as part of this system became a defining characteristic of Roman civilization, and although the system itself vanished during the Early Middle Ages, the names themselves exerted a profound influence on the development of European naming practices, and many continue to survive in modern languages.

A patronymic, or patronym, is a component of a personal name based on the given name of one's father, grandfather (avonymic), or an earlier male ancestor. It is the male equivalent of a matronymic.

A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities and may be used when referring to instances of a specific class. Some proper nouns occur in plural form, and then they refer to groups of entities considered as unique. Proper nouns can also occur in secondary applications, for example modifying nouns, or in the role of common nouns. The detailed definition of the term is problematic and, to an extent, governed by convention.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Surname</span> Hereditary portion of a personal name

A surname, family name, or last name is the mostly hereditary portion of one's personal name that indicates one's family. It is typically combined with a given name to form the full name of a person.

Onomastics is the study of the etymology, history, and use of proper names. An alethonym or an orthonym is the proper name of the object in question, the object of onomastic study.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chinese name</span> Naming customs of Chinese culture

Chinese names are personal names used by individuals from Greater China and other parts of the Sinophone world. Sometimes the same set of Chinese characters could be chosen as a Chinese name, a Hong Kong name, a Japanese name, a Korean name, or a Vietnamese name, but they would be spelled differently due to their varying historical pronunciation of Chinese characters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Personal name</span> Set of names by which an individual is known

A personal name, full name or prosoponym is the set of names by which an individual person is known, and that can be recited as a word-group, with the understanding that, taken together, they all relate to that one individual. In many cultures, the term is synonymous with the birth name or legal name of the individual. In linguistic classification, personal names are studied within a specific onomastic discipline, called anthroponymy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Given name</span> Part of a personal name

A given name is the part of a personal name that identifies a person, potentially with a middle name as well, and differentiates that person from the other members of a group who have a common surname. The term given name refers to a name usually bestowed at or close to the time of birth, usually by the parents of the newborn. A Christian name is the first name which is given at baptism, in Christian custom.

Nomenclature is a system of names or terms, or the rules for forming these terms in a particular field of arts or sciences. The principles of naming vary from the relatively informal conventions of everyday speech to the internationally agreed principles, rules and recommendations that govern the formation and use of the specialist terminology used in scientific and any other disciplines.

In modal logic and the philosophy of language, a term is said to be a rigid designator or absolute substantial term when it designates the same thing in all possible worlds in which that thing exists. A designator is persistently rigid if it also designates nothing in all other possible worlds. A designator is obstinately rigid if it designates the same thing in every possible world, period, whether or not that thing exists in that world. Rigid designators are contrasted with connotative terms, non-rigid or flaccid designators, which may designate different things in different possible worlds.

Indonesian names and naming customs reflect the multicultural and multilingual nature of the over 17,000 islands in the Indonesian archipelago. The world's fourth most populous nation, Indonesia is home to more than 1300 ethnic groups, each with their own culture, custom, and language. The Javanese are the largest single group, comprising around 40 percent of Indonesia's total population.

Named-entity recognition (NER) (also known as (named)entity identification, entity chunking, and entity extraction) is a subtask of information extraction that seeks to locate and classify named entities mentioned in unstructured text into pre-defined categories such as person names, organizations, locations, medical codes, time expressions, quantities, monetary values, percentages, etc.

Indian names are based on a variety of systems and naming conventions, which vary from region to region. In Indian culture, names hold profound significance and play a crucial role in an individual's life. The importance of names is deeply rooted in the country's diverse and ancient cultural heritage. Names are also influenced by religion and caste and may come from epics. In Hindu culture, names are often chosen based on astrological and numerological principles. It is believed that a person's name can influence their destiny, and selecting the right name is essential for a prosperous and harmonious life. Astrologers may be consulted to ensure a name aligns with the individual's birth chart.India's population speaks a wide variety of languages and nearly every major religion in the world has a following in India. This variety makes for subtle, often confusing, differences in names and naming styles. Due to historical Indian cultural influences, several names across South and Southeast Asia are influenced by or adapted from Indian names or words.

Anthroponymy is the study of anthroponyms, the proper names of human beings, both individual and collective. Anthroponymy is a branch of onomastics.

The naming convention used in Eritrea and Ethiopia does not have family names and typically consists of an individual personal name and a separate patronymic. This is similar to Arabic, Icelandic, and Somali naming conventions. Traditionally for Ethiopians and Eritreans the lineage is traced paternally; legislation has been passed in Eritrea that allows for this to be done on the maternal side as well.

In information extraction, a named entity is a real-world object, such as a person, location, organization, product, etc., that can be denoted with a proper name. It can be abstract or have a physical existence. Examples of named entities include Barack Obama, New York City, Volkswagen Golf, or anything else that can be named. Named entities can simply be viewed as entity instances.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bengali name</span> Personal names in Bengali-speaking countries

Personal names in Bengali-speaking countries consist of one or several given names and a surname. The given is usually gender-specific. A name is usually cited in the "Western order" of "given name, surname", though the practise is neither adopted from the West nor universal. Personal names may depend generally on the person's religion and also have origins from other languages like Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit and Pali, but they are used and pronounced as according to the native Bengali language.

A matrilineal surname or matriname is a family name inherited from one's mother, and maternal grandmother, and so on whose line of descent is called a mother-line, mitochondrial line, or matriline. A matriname passed on to subsequent issue is unchanged, as compared to a matronymic, which is derived from the first name of each new mother.

An Afghan personal name consists of a given name and sometimes a surname at the end. Personal names are generally not divided into first and family names; a single name is recognized as a full personal name, and the addition of further components – such as additional given names, regional, or ethnic family/clan names or patronymics – is often a matter of parents' choice. This structure is shared amongst the different ethnicities of Afghanistan and people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

References

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  2. "personal name". Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster. Archived from the original on 19 June 2018. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  3. 1 2 "General words for names, and types of name". macmillandictionary.com. Macmillan Dictionary. Archived from the original on 19 June 2018. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  4. 1 2 Fabry, Merrill (16 August 2016). "Now You Know: Why Do We Have Middle Names?" (web article). Time.com. Time. Archived from the original on 8 June 2018. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  5. Room 1996, p. 6.
  6. Barolini 2005, p. 91, 98.
  7. "Egyptian Religion", E. A. Wallis Budge", Arkana 1987 edition, ISBN   0-14-019017-1
  8. Catechism of the Catholic Church, para 881: "The episcopal college and its head, the Pope" Archived 2010-09-06 at the Wayback Machine
  9. The Routledge Companion to the Christian Church by Gerard Mannion and Lewis S. Mudge (Jan 30, 2008) ISBN   0415374200 page 235
  10. Baruch Hochman, Character in Literature (Cornell University Press, 1985), 37.
  11. Campbell, Mike. "Meaning, origin and history of the name Solomon". Behind the Name. Archived from the original on 27 December 2018. Retrieved 27 December 2018.
  12. "Solomon, the King". www.dawnbible.com. Archived from the original on 31 October 2019. Retrieved 27 December 2018.
  13. "Dolphins Name Themselves With Whistles, Study Says". National Geographic News. 8 May 2006. Archived from the original on 14 November 2006.
  14. Berg, Karl S.; Delgado, Soraya; Okawa, Rae; Beissinger, Steven R.; Bradbury, Jack W. (1 January 2011). "Contact calls are used for individual mate recognition in free-ranging green-rumped parrotlets, Forpus passerinus". Animal Behaviour. 81 (1): 241–248. doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2010.10.012. ISSN   0003-3472. S2CID   42150361. Archived from the original on 23 December 2011. Retrieved 25 October 2020.
  15. Grishman, Ralph; Sundheim, Beth (1996). Design of the MUC-6 evaluation (PDF). TIPSTER '96 Proceedings.
  16. Nadeau, David; Sekine, Satoshi (2007). A survey of named entity recognition and classification (PDF). Lingvisticae Investigationes.
  17. Nouvel, Damien; Ehrmann, Maud; Rosset, Sophie (2015). Wiley (ed.). Named Entities for Computational Linguistics. ISBN   978-1-84821-838-3.

Sources

Further reading