Quotes About Naming

Naming the emptiness where thought is not

A child's name is his portal to the world.

We need words to name and designate things. But we have only a static language with which to express ourselves.

His middle name's Pax. When he's older, if he wants to go by Paxton, Pax, Tiger, he has that choice. So, he has no choice not to be average with a name like that. It could go horribly wrong - he could be a DJ in the Midwest with the name Tiger - we'll see.

Apparently, I used to bite, scratch and growl at people when I was young, so my parents named me 'Tiger.'

Hoe heet ik?' vroeg ik. 'An,' zei hij. De kaaiman sperde zijn bek open. Zijn tanden, scherp als dolken, glommen in het maanlicht. 'Hoe heet ik?' herhaalde ik. 'Coriander,' gilde Arise.

A poet's work . . . to name the unnamable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world and stop it from going to sleep.

Just like the dry land to name the cruel things in the water after women.

America was discovered accidentally by a great seaman who was looking for something else; when discovered it was not wanted; and most of the exploration for the next fifty years was done in the hope of getting through or around it. America was named after a man who discovered no part of the New World. History is like that, very chancy.

The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names. —Chinese Proverb

an individual was a type of thing for which symbols were inadequate, and so names were invented.

Sometimes you want to say things, and you're missing an idea to make them with, and missing a word to make the idea with. In the beginning was the word. That's how somebody tried to explain it once. Until something is named, it doesn't exist.

Sometimes you want to say things, and you're missing an idea to make them with, and missing a word to make the idea with. In the beginning was the word. That's how somebody tried to explain it once. Until something is named, it doesn't exist.

If I got a dollar every time someone told me to name my future kid 'Batmo' I'd almost have enough to pay for therapy for a kid named Batmo.

Les femmes n'ont pas de nom. Elles ont un prénom. Leur nom est un prêt transitoire, un signe instable, leur éphémère. Elles trouvent d'autres repères. Leur affirmation au monde, leur être là, leur création, leur signature, en sont déterminés. Elles s'inventent dans un monde d'hommes, par effraction.

Isn't Mr. Cecil Wooley the fattest, slittiest-eyed thing you've ever seen? And don't you suppose that being called Reverend Doctor Mootfowl is not a common phenomenon, and never has been?

A person's name is a fate-conjuring incantation.

A thing named is a dead thing, and it's dead because it is set apart…

Lo juro, mi madre debería haberme llamado Fido.

People," the doctor said sadly, "are always so anxious to get things out into the open where they can put a name to them, even a meaningless name, so long as it has something of a scientific ring.

Wouldn't it be easier if we just named all the cats Password?

The severest test of the imagination is naming a cat

Agents she'd named Brylcreem and Cancer Man

As the semantic engineer, your job is naming the parts and tightening nuts and bolts. I suggest you get back to your office and do that - right now!