Fictional Names

Fictional names have been one of the most important and serious topics in the contemporary philosophy of language and metaphysics.Several questions such as “Do fictional names refer to any objects?” “Are fictional characters existent objects?” have resulted in a considerable literature of philosophy. In this essay, we will follow two objectives. First we will describe and elaborate the ideas of three great philosophers who believe that fictional names are genuine and proper names which do refer to existent fictional characters. Second we will criticize the theories of two philosophers (Peter Van Inwagen and Saul Kripke’s theories) and will eventually defend the third i.e. Nathan Salmon’s theory of fictional names. Through the issues we will presuppose direct reference theory as our main semantic theory for proper names.