A proper namein linguistics– and in the specific sense employed at Wikipedia – is a proper noun (technically a proper-noun phraseconsisting of one or more words: a noun and optional adherent modifiers).

The name of a specific entity is sometimes called a proper name (although that term has a philosophical meaning as well) and is, when consisting of only one word, a proper noun.

[b] When the distinction is made, proper nouns are limited to single words only (possibly with the), while proper names include all proper nouns (in their primary applications) as well as noun phrases such as the United Kingdom, North Carolina, Royal Air Force, and the White House.

In the philosophy of language, a proper name – examples include a name of a specific person or place – is a name which ordinarily is taken to uniquely identify its referent in the world. As such it presents particular challenges for theories of meaning, and it has become a central problem in analytic philosophy.