The issue is with the difference, according to Russell, between *proper names* and *descriptions*.

See :

- Bertrand Russell, [An Inquary Into Meaning and Truth : The William James Lectures](https://books.google.it/books?id=Bty-hdFVc_YC&pg=PA294) (1940), page 294,

and the discussion in :

- Saul Kripke, [Naming and Necessity](https://books.google.it/books?id=9vvAlOBfq0kC&pg=PA6) (revised ed - 1980), page 6-on.

A proper name, in Kripke's terms, is a *rigid designator*, i.e. it must denote an object.

According to Kripke's reading of Russell, most of "names" are not "real" names, but only descriptions.

Russell's analysis of [Descriptions](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descriptions/) can be illustrated by the well know example :

>"the present King of France is bald"

which must be analyzed as :

>**∃x(King_of_France(x) & ∀y(King_of_France(y) → x=y) & bald(x))**.

Due to to the fact that France is a republic, there is **no** present King of France; thus the clause **King_of_France(x)** is never satisfied, and so is the *conjunction*; thus, the existentially quantified sentence is *false*.

Conclusion : the sentence is *false*.

If we use insted a "real" *propre name* in a "logically perfect" language, we assume that it has reference; this is so in the current semantics for first-order logic.

Being so, we are entitled to assert the following logical law :

>**∃x(x=c)**

for any (individual) *constant* of the language.

Thus, what happens with **Hamlet** ?

If we are interpreting our language in the "real" world, clearly **Hamlet** has no reference, and thus we have not : **∃x(x=Hamlet)**. But we cannot "violate" logical laws...

Thus, we have to ban names (individual constants) without reference; expressions with names without reference are "un-grammatical", i.e. they are **not** well-formed expressions :

>This illustrates one of the peculiarities of proper names: that, unlike descriptions, they are meaningless unless there is an object which they designate.

If we want to use "Hamlet" meaningfully, we have to treat it as a description, something like :

>the fictional character of Shakespeare's play.