Proper names and identifying descriptions

There is an extremely plausible principle about proper names that many philosophers up to the present have either assumed or argued for. I will call it the ‘principle of identifying descriptions’. One illustration of it is in this passage from Strawson’s Individuals: ...it is no good using a name for a particular unless one knows who or what is referred to by the use of the name. A name is worthless without a backing of descriptions which can be produced on demand to explain the application.1