One can have an immensely amusing argument as to whether the Name that appears in start- and end-tags (and also empty-element tags, as the spec (tsk, tsk) doesn't say) is the type of the element, or whether the element's type is an abstract metaphysical what-not which is named by the type. This is reminiscent of the debate in Lewis Carroll about a song, its name, what it's called, what its name is called, and so on ad infinitum.
I am pleased by the fact that the wording in the spec ("The name ... gives the element's type") can be used to support either interpretation.
Copyright © 1998, Tim Bray. All rights reserved.