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His name is Narayana.
He is called Madhava.
He is called Ajit because no one can defeat him.

It seems that in such cases we're talking about words as words, and some kind of use/mention distinction seem to be required. Italics is already reserved for foreign terms in my text, therefore I'm considering using quotation marks.

However, it seems that the common practice is not to emphasise names in such cases at all. Example: https://ell.stackexchange.com/a/260744/147879

What is the grammatical norm for this?

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Normally when we are just stating someone's name, like "His name is Bob", we don't mark it out it any way. No quotes or italics or anything. Just normal type.

If you are talking about a name as a word, without reference to any particular person with that name, then put it in quotes. Like:

The name "Bob" has a long and distinguished history.

Perhaps this is inconsistent in a way, as if you say, "His name is Bob", you are talking about the word "Bob" as a word in some sense. But that's just not the convention.

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  • Thank you for clarification. Does this apply to the other two examples in my question? Especially to the third one, which is not just an introduction of a person.
    – AKd
    Commented Mar 3, 2022 at 6:16
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    I would suggest that quotes are unnecessary in all three examples. My old car is affectionately called Edith My cat is called Zeus because he is the ruler of this house.
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Mar 3, 2022 at 8:17
  • That's clear. What about such variation—He is addressed as Zeus? The same approach?
    – AKd
    Commented Mar 3, 2022 at 13:12
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    As long as you're referring to a specific individual, we don't put quote marks or set the name off in any other way. All three of your examples would not use quotes. "He is addressed as Zeus" would not use quotes. Ditto for any other variation I can think of that is still talking about one specific person. The only time I can think of when you use quotes is when you talk about a name without referring to a specific person. (I can't swear that there are no exceptions to this. Happy to hear if someone has one.)
    – Jay
    Commented Mar 3, 2022 at 14:35

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