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.).
Claire Becerra is a Ph.D student in philosophy at Northwestern University, with interests in the philosophy of language, social epistemology, and the philosophy of education, all of which are informed by her indigeneity. She is a member of the Tohono O'odham Nation, and currently splits time between Chicago, New York City, and Arizona. What are you working on right now? These days, I'm spending most of my time developing my dissertation, which applies a philosophical lens to indigenous land acknowledgments.