put a name to (someone or something)

idiom

: to think of and say the name of (someone or something)

Can you put a name to the face in this photograph?

I couldn't put a name to the emotion I was feeling.

Examples of put a name to (someone or something) in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

After years of combing through military records and making some key deductions, a team of U.S. government historians and researchers has finally put a name to case file X-3212, identifying a 20-year-old Army private from eastern New Mexico named Homer Mitchell who died during World War II. —CBS News, 21 Dec. 2023

Across languages, people have sought to put a name to that feeling. —The New Yorker, 5 Dec. 2023

In all the press describing that day in Newport, R.I., and for years afterward, almost no one put a name to the dress. —Laura Jacobs, WSJ, 18 Oct. 2023

Though such terms can be validating for people who can now put a name to an experience, therapy-speak can eliminate all nuance from a conversation. —Laura Newberry, Los Angeles Times, 25 July 2023

Calls for such bans aren’t surprising, especially those aimed at systems that put a name to pictures of otherwise unknown suspects. —Brian E. Finch, WSJ, 15 Dec. 2020

The two samples matched and police in East Haven were finally able to put a name to Jane Doe: Patricia Meleady Newsom. —Aliza Chasan, CBS News, 18 Apr. 2023

Global Covid-19 cases have now surpassed 250 million, just a year and eight months after the World Health Organization put a name to the coronavirus pandemic. —Aj Willingham, CNN, 9 Nov. 2021

Glad to help law enforcement generate leads and, in some instances, put a name to a face, Koppelman was almost always an unpaid volunteer. —Longreads, 9 Sep. 2021