This is the named entity and the meaning signified. The expression denoting it, composed of zāy, yāʾ, and dāl, is the name. This expression has itself also become a named entity, insofar as the expression composed of hamzah, sīn, and mīm denotes it.

It is now clear to you that, in its original linguistic usage, the “name” is not the named entity. Hence you say, “I named this person with this name,” just as you say, “I adorned him with this adornment.” The adornment is distinct from the one adorned; likewise, the name is distinct from the named entity. Sībawayh explicitly stated this. Whoever attributed anything else to him and claimed that he regarded the two as identical was mistaken.

What misled the person making that claim was his statement: “Verbs are patterns derived from expressions for the events denoted by nouns.” This does not contradict his preceding explicit statement that the name is distinct from the named entity. He said, “Words are nouns, verbs, and particles.” He thus explicitly stated that a name is a word. How, then, could the word be the named entity, when the named entity is a person? He subsequently said: “You say, ‘I named Zayd with this name,’ just as you say, ‘I marked him with this mark.’”

His book contains nearly a thousand passages indicating that the name is the expression denoting the named entity. Whenever he mentions the genitive or accusative case, nunation, lām, or anything affecting a noun—addition or omission, diminutive or non-diminutive forms, inflection or indeclinability—all these are properties of the name. None of them has any connection whatsoever with the named entity. No grammarian or Arab has ever said that the name is the named entity. They say “an appointed term,” not “a name term.” They say, “The entity named by this name is such-and-such”; no one says, “The name of this name.” They say, “This person is named Zayd,” not “This man is the name Zayd.” They say, “In the name of Allah,” not “In the named entity of Allah.”

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “I have five names.” It would not be correct to say, “I have five named entities.”

He also said, “So name yourselves after me.” It would not be correct to say, “Name yourselves after my named entities.”

And he said, “Allah has ninety-nine names.” It would not be correct to say, “Allah has ninety-nine named entities.”