 i.e., if the king of France does not exist it cannot be true that I am looking for him, which is unsatisfactory. Kripke (1971) criticized Russell’s solution and proposed his so-called causal theory of reference in which a name get its reference by an initial act of “baptism”. It then becomes a rigid designator (see entry on  rigid designators)  that can be followed back to that original act via causal chains. In this way ad hoc descriptions like “John was the fourth person to step out of the elevator this morning” can establish a semantics for a name.