 As Kaplan (1989a: 562) points out, there is a competing account of the variable reference of names that does not treat them as generic expressions with a metalinguistic meaning (rule of use). On that account, the variation in reference is due to either ambiguity or homonymy (i.e., there are many different “specific” names with the same form), and what passes for a rule of use on the metalinguistic theory is not properly ascribed to the meaning of names at all, but is rather a more generally applicable procedure of disambiguation (see also Evans 1973, as well as Evans 1982, where name-using practices, rather than specific names, are settled on in the process of disambiguation).