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'Please. What’s your name?” Coraline asked the cat. “Look, I’m Coraline. Okay?”

The cat yawned slowly, carefully, revealing a mouth and tongue of astounding pinkness.

“Cats don’t have names,” it said.

“No?” said Coraline.

“No,” said the cat. “Now, you people have names. That’s because you don’t know who you are. We know who we are, so we don’t need names."

Neil Gaiman, Coraline

"What oft was said, but ne'er so well expressed..." (Alexander Pope. I forget where:))

Mr Gaiman does a good job of it.