What is a name?
An identifier differentiating one from another.
Why would God need a name when He is the only one there is?
Sure, pagans over the millenia have imagined pantheons, filling the rosters with specific-purpose deities, but what did the Eternal Being go by amongst His angels before he revealed Himself to Moses as I AM WHO AM ?
As a semi-related question, is there any connection between the ancient Hebrew-Semitic term “el” for god or gods, and the Spanish article? Is God’s name “The”?
The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.
Beat me to it, EP.
God doesn’t need a name. We do.
Can you imagine a prayer or meditation like
Oh something that may or may not even exist , but just in case you do, hear my prayer!
I remember going into an Indian restaurant and they had religious posters and pictures one which read, the 1000 names of God, with the list, or something to that effect.
We spent part of the meal coming up with names.
Oh yeah? So why can’t we take it in name, to the point that some of my favorite posters won’t type even His generic English, though capitalized, title, not even His “name,” without dropping its vowels? Besides the part where, in ancient Hebrew, vowels were implied but not written? 
He has always had a name (though it changed). So did His son, Who was “the Word made flesh.” Words are big magic in some cultures, and the name of God was the biggest magic of all.
It makes cashing those welfare checks easier.
God does not need A name. He needs 9,000,000,000 names. Otherwise, how will he know when to turn all the stars off?
So, was that the first program written when some college kid didn’t have to account for his computer time and had a free terminal to print out the results?
No, it’d probably still be running, though a modern dual-core processor could probaly do it in hours, if not minutes or seconds. Unless it was running Vista.
I think it goes something like this:
God not only doesn’t *need *a name, God doesn’t *have *a name. “God” is not a name; it is a category. A category of one, if you are a monotheist. It’s like if I were a dentist, and the only dentist in the universe, you could just call me “dentist” and that would be that.
Actually, that last sentence sounds like something Jack Handy might say!
I thought His name was Harold.
You know, Harold be thy name.
Firstly, Jehovah is clearly not the only god conceptually so a name is convenient to make it clear that we’re talking about the real god and not one of the fake ones (:rolleyes:).
Secondly, even if Jehovah were the only god concept in existence, you’d still need a name to differentiate between god and other non-god entities. In that case though, the word “god” would probably do double-duty as both “all-powerful supernatural being” and “the one god that actually exists”.
He doesn’t.
What he needs is a starship!!!
So “God” isn’t his name, it’s merely his job description.
Beat me to it.
If God wasn’t called God (Whether you believe in him/her/it or not )how the hell could you post this thread ?
Why does need a name?
God shows in the scriptures that names are very important to Him. We really don’t know the name of God till Jesus, but we do get aspect names plus a name that we really can’t even use or pronounce. At this time God is a mystery to us.
When we begin to know Jesus we can call to God by name, it is the relationship God wants with us, that personal. And not only can we call Him by name, but He gives us His name - so when we pray we are not praying in our own name, but exactly as if Jesus was praying your prayer Himself (which He is through the believer).
And,…he has a pet bear named Gladly who is cross eyed. 
Well first of all he was called El (El (deity) - Wikipedia), back when he had a wife called Asherah (Asherah - Wikipedia). And lo they begat seventy little godlets, including Yahweh (Yahweh - Wikipedia) and Baal (Baal - Wikipedia).
Each of the gods and godlets had a three-letter name, described in the Shemhamphorasch (Shem HaMephorash - Wikipedia) aka the Divided Name.
Then one day a king called Hezekiah (Hezekiah - Wikipedia) rose in Jerusalem and instituted some kick-ass religious reforms. He merged El and Yahweh, disbanded Asherah (heck, she was a chick! can’t have chicks in charge!), discredited Baal and downgraded the other godlets to “angels”. Sort of like a modern leader merging & disbanding government departments and dispensing promotions to his chums.
If God had a name,
What would it be?
And would you call it to His face,
If you were faced with Him
In all His glory?
What would you ask
If you had just one question?