Do other animals call each other by name?

Every person you know has a name, and you've likely given one to your pets, too.

But are names a uniquely human feature, or do other animals also call each other by name? Research suggests that some mammals and birds use vocal labels for other individuals, but not all scientists agree on how to interpret the evidence.

In the 1960s, scientists discovered that young bottlenose dolphins ( Tursiops ) create individually distinctive whistles, called signature whistles .

Researchers in the years since have conducted experiments in which they played the whistles through an underwater speaker and observed how the dolphins responded.

Dolphins copy the signature whistles of other dolphins to initiate contact, similarly to how we use names, and can recognize other individual dolphins based on the frequency and "shape" of the whistle, regardless of the voice of the dolphin whistling.

Dolphins do seem to assign these whistles to other individuals and to match the whistles to others in a more symbolic way, Kelly Jaakkola , a cognitive psychologist at the Dolphin Research Center in Florida, told Live Science.

Research shows that dolphins whistle to identify each other within complex social systems and while cooperating on tasks .

Through playback experiments, researchers also found that wild African elephants ( Loxodonta ) address one another with specific vocalizations ‪—‬ low rumbling sounds that are unique to each individual.

The team published their findings in a 2023 preprint study , but it has not been peer-reviewed yet.

"They sound a little bit like a giant cat purring," Michael Pardo , a behavioral ecologist at Colorado State University and first author of the study, told Live Science.

Elephants tended to approach speakers more quickly, and vocalize more in response, when their "name" was played.

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Playback experiments have also suggested that spectacled parrotlets ( Forpus conspicillatus ), small parrots native to parts of South and Central America, use vocal labels for other parrotlets.

Studies of birds in captivity can shed light on their capacity to learn vocal labels.