proper name

plural proper names

1. A word or phrase that has noun part of speech and names a specific object, usually capitalized, for example Martin or New York.

   For quotations using this term, see Citations:proper name.

   4 more examples

   A proper name, when it occurs in a proposition, is always, at least according to one of the possible ways of analysis (where there are several), the subject that the proposition or some subordinate constituent proposition is about, and not what is said about the subject.

   1950, Bertrand Russell, The Principles of Mathematics

   We might clarify some of the points made in this chapter by comparing paradigm proper names with degenerate proper names like "the Bank of England".

   1970, John R. Searle, Speech acts

   Proper names are poetry in the raw. Like all poetry they are untranslatable. Someone who is translating into English a German novel, the hero of which is named Heinrich, will leave the name as it is; he will not Anglicize it into Henry.

   1970, W. H. Auden, A Certain World, New York: Viking Press, →ISBN, page 267

   For instance, the proper name ‘Jessica Alba’ consists of two proper nouns: ‘Jessica’ and ‘Alba’.

   2009, Sam Cumming, “Names”, in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

   Synonyms: proper noun[Appendix:Glossary, name