State naming practices and local, customary naming practices are strikingly different. Each set of practices is designed to make the human and physical landscape legible, by sharply identifying a unique individual, a household, or a singular geographic feature. Yet they are each devised by very distinct agents for whom the purposes of identification are radically different. Purely local, customary practices, as we shall see, achieve a level of precision and clarity--often with impressive economy--perfectly suited to the needs of knowledgeable locals. State naming practices are, by contrast, constructed to guide an official ÔstrangerÕ in identifying unambiguously persons and places, not just in a single locality, but in many localities using standardized administrative techniques.