A Stuffed Animal By Any Other Name....

     The other night when I was doing homework a thought occurred to me - it is a really interesting phenomenon when children name their stuffed animals and other inanimate objects. I have even noticed people doing it here at school, for in my group of friends, Devon has named her plant Phyll, Katherine has a phone she calls Lucifer, and Ashley has a stuffed hippopotamus named Samantha. Then I started to wonder, do people confer moral status onto objects when they name them? Essentially, people recognize that the things are unconscious beings, but they still attempt to make them seem "more human" by giving them a name. But, why do people do this? In the case of children, perhaps they do it so they feel less lonley. For if you think about it, children often play with their stuffed animals and sleep with many of them at night. This does not seem to explain why adults do it though. Perhaps for them it is a mechanism for making the world a less scary place. But, whatever the case may be, while they might be assigning a higher moral status than what should be given, I do not think it is negative for anyone to do it. After all, the world can be rather intimidating, and if naming your laptop makes you feel better, so be it.  Do you think it is ever negative for children to name their stuffed animals? Do you feel that giving the "wrong" moral status to objects is detrimental to those who assign it?