名前（固有名詞）に意味があるのか，という問いは名前学 (onomastics) の論争の代表格である．関連する話題は hellog でも「#2212. 固有名詞はシニフィエなきシニフィアンである」 ([2015-05-18-1])，「#5289. 名前に意味はあるのか？」 ([2023-10-20-1])，「#5290. 名前に意味はあるのか論争の4つの論点」 ([2023-10-21-1]) などで取り上げてきた．
　これと関連の深いもう1つの問題は，名前は特定の言語に属するか，という問いである．London は英語語彙の一部なのか，「東京」は日本語彙の一部なのか．John や「太郎」はどうか．特定の名前はどの言語にも属していないとも，すべての言語に属しているとも言えるかもしれない（cf. 「#2979. Chibanian はラテン語？」 ([2017-06-23-1]) の議論も参照）．
　とすれば，English names （英語の名前）という表現も，素直には受け取れないように思われる．この English names について論じている Coates (331--32) の解説（弁解？）は以下の通り．

   Talking of English names, as I have just done, raises a whole further problem to which there is no easy answer. What is an English name? A name like that of Athens, Georgia, is an English name in the sense that it was bestowed by English-speakers, and preserved as institutionalised in an English-speaking community. In that sense it is hard to call it a Greek name, whilst (ignoring changes during the transmission of the name via Latin and French to modern English) there is a more obvious sense in which that of Athens, Greece, is Greek. (This is reflected by differential translatability; Athens, Greece, is translatable into French (etc.) whilst Athens, Georgia, is not.) For the purposes of this chapter, I shall define an English name as one coined using English-language material; allowing for the fact that namers make use of borrowed onomastic elements (e.g. in place-names -ville, -burg, in given-names -ine, -ette - see below). But I shall want to mention English-transmitted names such as the Athens just mentioned, at least in passing, because their usage tells us something about the English language during the period in question: namely what the naming strategies of English-speakers were.
   I doubt whether the notion 'English name' can ever be made fully coherent, and still embrace all the names bestowed by English-speakers and used in an English-language context; but the above will serve as a guide to my intentions in the pages which follow.

　English names の論考は，もちろん意味のあるものである．English names の研究は，当面は英語社会における名付け行為と，その結果としての名前語彙の研究ととらえておいてよいだろう．

　・ Coates, Richard. "Names." Chapter 6 of A History of the English Language. Ed. Richard Hogg and David Denison. Cambridge: CUP, 2006. 312--51.

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