Naming

How to spell naming

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce naming

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does naming mean?

1. verbGiving a name or title to a person, place, or thing; identifying something specifically.
2. nounThe act or process of choosing and assigning a name.

Naming in a sentence

• verb

  The committee spent an hour naming the new conference room.

• noun

  The naming of the ship took place at a small harbour ceremony.

• verb

  She had trouble naming every employee on the spot during the meeting.

• noun

  The brand spent months on the naming of its flagship product.

Where does naming come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is the -ing form of the verb 'name', which descends from the Old English noun nama, meaning simply 'a word by which a person or thing is known'. That noun came from a shared Germanic root, seen in Dutch naam and German Name, and it traces all the way back to a Proto-Indo-European root that also produced the Latin nomen and the Greek onoma, both meaning 'name'. The verb sense of giving someone or something a name developed within Old English itself, and adding the productive -ing suffix turned it into both an action noun and a continuous verb form. The spelling trap is small but real: 'name' ends in a silent e, and English drops that e before adding -ing, so it becomes 'naming' rather than 'nameing'. That same silent-e rule governs relatives such as 'blaming' and 'taming'.

How the word is built

• name (from Old English nama)
• -ing (gerund/present participle suffix)