Rigid designator

A rigid designator ( rigid designators ) is a name / identifier that references the same object in all possible worlds. Designators such as "water " or " H2O" are rigid for examples because they mean the same substance at all, even counterfactual circumstances. " The favorite drink of my grandma ", however, is a non- rigid designator, since it although in reality also water is meant, however, circumstances are conceivable in which this is not the case.

The determination of the reference of a name is done in a kind of baptism and is spread by the language community. This procedure of setting and passing on names and therefore have no semantic content, whereas in the classical theory of proper names (see Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein) the descriptions are constitutive.

The concept was formulated by Saul Kripke in his work name and necessity in the field of the theory of proper names.