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Full Idea
A name has got to name something or it is not a name.
Gist of Idea
A name has got to name something or it is not a name
Source
Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918], 66th pg), quoted by Mark Sainsbury - The Essence of Reference 18.2
Book Ref
'Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Language', ed/tr. Lepore,E/Smith,B [OUP 2008], p.399
A Reaction
This seems to be stipulative, since most people would say that a list of potential names for a baby counted as names. It may be wrong. There are fictional names, or mistakes.
18937 | If sentences have a 'sense', empty name sentences can be understood that way [Frege, by Sawyer] |
18940 | It is a weakness of natural languages to contain non-denoting names [Frege] |
18939 | In a logically perfect language every well-formed proper name designates an object [Frege] |
6439 | Names are meaningless unless there is an object which they designate [Russell] |
18943 | Russell implies that all sentences containing empty names are false [Sawyer on Russell] |
10426 | A name has got to name something or it is not a name [Russell] |
13361 | An expression is only a name if it succeeds in referring to a real object [Bostock] |
10429 | It is best to say that a name designates iff there is something for it to designate [Sainsbury] |
19001 | 'Pegasus doesn't exist' is false without Pegasus, yet the absence of Pegasus is its truthmaker [Yablo] |
12446 | Names function the same way, even if there is no object [Azzouni] |
18946 | Unreflectively, we all assume there are nonexistents, and we can refer to them [Reimer] |
18934 | Sentences with empty names can be understood, be co-referential, and even be true [Sawyer] |
18938 | Frege's compositional account of truth-vaues makes 'Pegasus doesn't exist' neither true nor false [Sawyer] |