What is the `name` keyword in JavaScript?

Question

When I typed this apparently innocent snippet of code:

values.name 

gedit highlighted name as a keyword. However, name is not listed by the pages linked to by an answer to a question about reserved keywords. I also did a couple trivial tests in SpiderMonkey, but name seemed to act like an ordinary identifier.

A Google search didn't tell me much either. However, I did find a page listing name in "Other JavaScript Keywords". My guess is that name is a function or a member of some DOM element and does not intrude on the namespace.

Is name really a keyword in JavaScript? If so, what does it do?

Answer 1

Its not a javascript reserved word, its an html attribute. Any DOM element can have a name. Looks like your syntax editor will still highlight it.

Answer 2

(I know this was asked 2 years ago but, ...) This happened to me also, for example this below would not work.

name = document.getElementById('nombre'); //something else name.className = 'thinking'; 

Instead I changed it to

username = document.getElementById('nombre'); //something else username.className = 'thinking'; 

and it did work! Yeah, alright that's all, but it's something I find maybe quite interesting, also because of the 'name' attribute of the 'a' tag. Something to watch out for.