#names

#names

Are there "gay names"? We would say there aren't, but that hasn't stopped internet speculation on the matter. One gay man went viral last week with his suggestion of the 'Top 3 Gayest Names'. Hunter Cassidy says he's an expert in the field, but we think that expertise comes mainly from the fact that he's worked in a gay bar and presumably met lots of gay men.

Names are a big deal in the philosophy of language. Gottlob Frege taught philosophers about sense and reference with "Hesperus" and "Phosphorus." Bertrand Russell used names to demonstrate how the surface form of a sentence can differ radically from its logical form. And Saul Kripke used observations about names to motivate theses in modal metaphysics. Names are a big deal outside of philosophy, too. We don new names to symbolically mark changes in self-identity (due to marriage or religious conversion, etc.).

When teachers are asked about names, they often have lists of names they would never choose for their own kids, shaped by years of classroom experiences.