Name

How to spell name

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce name

What does name mean?

1. nounThe word or words by which a person, place, or thing is known and addressed.
2. verbTo give a name to someone or something, or to specify a person or thing precisely.

Name in a sentence

• noun

  Please print your full name at the top of the form.

• verb

  The board will name a new chief executive next week.

• noun

  The company changed its name after the merger.

• verb

  They decided to name their daughter after her grandmother.

Where does name come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word name comes from the Old English nama, meaning the word by which a person or thing is known. It belongs to a very old and widespread family: the same root surfaces as Naam in Dutch, Name in German, and is mirrored in the Latin nomen and the Greek onoma, all going back to a shared ancestral root meaning to name or to call. Because the word is so ancient and native to English, its spelling settled early, with the silent final e marking the long 'a' sound, as in same and game. The verb sense, meaning to give a name or to specify, has existed almost as long as the noun. That deep, unbroken history is why name looks and behaves so regularly today.

How the word is built

• name (from Old English nama: a word identifying a person or thing); a complete root with no affixes