The efficacy of names and their place in the lexicon

• The semantic and pragmatic architecture of names examined from multiple perspectives. • Context and encyclopedic knowledge shape meaning of both common and proper names. • Names are efficacious because their form is motivated by specifiable features. • The Saussurean myth of the arbitrariness of names is falsified. • Semantic content in the lexicon is derived from the encyclopaedia. This essay argues for a common-sense lexical-pragmatics approach to names. The semantic and pragmatic architecture of names is examined along with cross-cultural naming practices, and the functions of alternative names (nicknames, pseudonyms, slurs, and identity labels). Although a Saussurean emphasis on the character of language as an arbitrary system of symbols has long been questioned, there has been little to no focus on the efficacy of names. It is shown that names, both common and proper, prove to be efficacious because their chosen form is normally motivated by features of identity, ideology, and/or sociocultural history – albeit subject to phonological, graphological, semantic, and sociocultural constraints. The distinction between proper and common names is re-evaluated with emphasis on the way context and encyclopedic knowledge shape the choice and use of both common and proper names. A model lexicographic treatment of both common and proper names shows them to have semantic content that makes recourse to encyclopedic data in a similar way.