Backstory

Everybody gets named. Usually, they get their first name sometime around their birth. Most get named before they are born. It all depends on the culture and the circumstances. For example, once upon a time someone called MacDonald would be the presumed son (mac is the prefix which means son) of Donald. Today, Jane MacDonald is... well... Jane.

There are many cultures where the naming was really a father to son affair. One of the most famous naming laws in the twentieth century was passed on June 21, 1934. Where was it passed? Why was it necessary?

Sometimes, the one born would be given the name of the occupation of the father. So, we have John Smith and Mary Taylor. Were we to follow this tradition, we can imagine names like Timothy Kingmaker and Cynthia Filmproducer.

And so, it came to pass, that when the Internet came into being, there was again the need to name. An even bigger and more important naming need occurred with the birth of the World Wide Web (WWW).

Weaving the Web

In his book "Weaving the Web" with Mark Fischetti, Tim Berners-Lee writes (p. 66) "I presented the idea of a universal document identifier" (UDI). Subsequently, universal became uniform, document became resource, and locator was preferred over identifier. "We argued, but at the IETF [1992] the universal resource identifier became URL, the uniform resource locator" (p. 67).

That was then. Now the URI has come into its own.

Answers

Question on the Naming Law of 1934

There are many cultures where the naming was really a father to son affair. One of the most famous naming laws in the twentieth century was passed on June 21, 1934.

Q. Where was it passed?
Q. Why was it necessary?

Answer strategy

1. Why not try searching Wikipedia first?

Let us begin with the search text «Wikipedia "naming law"»
The first result is about Dutch names.^[1]

We now search with «Wikipedia "naming law" 1934»
There are no results.

Let us search outside Wikipedia.
There are still no results. Perhaps we must be very specific about the date. Let us begin again.
«Wikipedia "naming law" 21 June 1934»
Hmmm! This is a harder question than expected.

2. The answer is on Wikipedia!

How do I know? Well, that is where I started when I formulated the question. Here is a source: Atatürk's Reforms.^[2]

Notes and references

↑ The is a very interesting article on the question of naming. It is not the answer anticipated. To find the answer to the naming law question we will need to include the year 1934.
↑ In order to enrich our experience and knowledge, and to help others, let us answer the question by checking facts inside and outside Wikipedia. Then let us add a new page on Turkish_name just like that of the page on Dutch_name which we found?

[1] The is a very interesting article on the question of naming. It is not the answer anticipated. To find the answer to the naming law question we will need to include the year 1934.

[2] In order to enrich our experience and knowledge, and to help others, let us answer the question by checking facts inside and outside Wikipedia. Then let us add a new page on Turkish_name just like that of the page on Dutch_name which we found?

[1]

[2]

Computers & Society/World Wide Web/URI or URL?

Contents