Empty name

In metaphysics and the philosophy of language, an empty name is a proper name that has no referent.

The problem of empty names is the idea that empty names have a meaning when it seems they should not have. The name "Pegasus" is empty;^[1] there is nothing to which it refers. Yet, though there is no Pegasus, we know what the sentence "Pegasus has two wings" means. We can even understand the sentence "There is no such thing as Pegasus." But, what can the meaning of a proper name be, except the object to which it refers?

^ W. V. O. Quine, "On What There Is", The Review of Metaphysics 2(5), 1948.

[1] W. V. O. Quine, "On What There Is", The Review of Metaphysics 2(5), 1948.

[1]