Word.ws English Dictionary

naming names

naming names is the present participle and gerund of name names.

Meaning of name names

Verb

name names (third-person singular simple present names names, present participle naming names, simple past and past participle named names)

  1. (idiomatic) To identify specific people, especially people involved in misdeeds or other secretive activity.
    • "Pr'ythee, peace, man," said Avenel; "what need of naming names, so we understand each other? [...]"1820 March, [Walter Scott], chapter X, in The Monastery. A Romance. […], volume II, Edinburgh: […] Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and for Archibald Constable and Co., and John...

Questions about naming names

What is naming names the present participle and gerund of?
Naming names is the present participle and gerund of name names.

Words near naming names in the dictionary

  1. naming and shaming
  2. naming collision
  3. naming collisions
  4. naming convention
  5. naming conventions
  6. naming names
  7. naming one's poison
  8. naming rights
  9. naming the day
  10. naming word
  11. naming words

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: naming names (page history and authors); name names (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “naming names.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/naming_names. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.