{"id":241504,"date":"2026-07-24T16:11:06","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T21:11:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/do-animals-use-names-conceptual-and-empirical-criteria"},"modified":"2026-07-24T16:11:06","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T21:11:06","slug":"do-animals-use-names-conceptual-and-empirical-criteria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/do-animals-use-names-conceptual-and-empirical-criteria","title":{"rendered":"Do animals use names? Conceptual and empirical criteria"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/do-animals-use-names-conceptual-and-empirical-criteria2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In recent years, several claims have been put forth suggesting that animals of different species address each other using receiver-specific calls that function as individual names. If accurate, this would demonstrate a capacity for symbolic social reference that has rarely been documented in nonhuman communication systems. To evaluate such claims, we propose three minimal criteria for identifying names: individual reference, symbolic <i>represent <\/i>ation, and shared meaning. We then review the evidence relevant to these criteria in the species for which name-like calls have been suggested: spectacled parrotlets, common marmosets, African elephants, and bottlenose dolphins. Together, these criteria provide a clear and theoretically grounded framework for exploring the use of name-like calls in nonhuman animals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In recent years, several claims have been put forth suggesting that animals of different species address each other using receiver-specific calls that function as individual names. If accurate, this would demonstrate a capacity for symbolic social reference that has rarely been documented in nonhuman communication systems. To evaluate such claims, we propose three minimal criteria [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-241504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-futurism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241504\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}