The Causal-Historical view's key notion is that of the passing on of reference from one person to another.  But not just any such transfer will do.  First, we must rule out the "naming after" phenomenon.  My boyhood friend John Lewis acquired a sheepdog, and named it "Napoleon" after the emperor; he had the historical Napoleon explicitly in mind and wanted to name his dog after that famous person.  "Naming after" is a link in a causal-historical chain: it is only because the emperor was named "Napoleon" that John Lewis named his dog that.  But it is the wrong kind of link.  To rule it out, Kripke requires that "[w]hen the name is `passed from link to link', the receiver of the name must...intend when he learns it to use it with the same reference as the man from whom he heard it" (p. 96).  This requirement was clearly not met by John Lewis, who was deliberately changing the referent from the emperor to the dog and meant his friends to be well aware of that.
    Second, Kripke adduces the example of "Santa Claus."  There may be a causal chain tracing our use of that name back to a certain historical saint, probably a real person who lived in eastern Europe centuries ago, but no one would say that when children use it they unwittingly refer to that saint; clearly they refer to the fictional Christmas elf.  But then, how does "Santa Claus" differ from "Jonah"?  Why should we not say that there was a real Santa Claus, but that all the mythology about him is garishly false?  Instead, of course, we say that there is no Santa Claus (apologies to anyone who did not know that).  We use the name "Santa Claus" as though it abbreviates a description.  A similar example would be that of "Dracula."  It is well known that the contemporary use of that name goes back to a real Transylvanian nobleman called "Vlad" (commonly, "Vlad the Impaler," in virtue of his customary treatment of people who had annoyed him).  But of course when we now say "Dracula" we mean the vampire created by Bram Stoker and portrayed by Bela Lugosi in the famous movie.
    Having merely raised the problem, Kripke does not try to patch his account in response, but moves on.  Probably the most obvious feature to note is that "Santa Claus" and "Dracula" as we use those names are associated with very powerful stereotypes, indeed cultural icons in the United States.  Their social roles are so prominent they they really have ossified into fictional descriptions, in a way that "Jonah" has not even among religious people.  In a way, Jonah's iconic properties are side by side with his historical properties in the Old Testament, but as we might say, "Santa Claus" and "Dracula" are pure icon.  And for the average American, the myth utterly dwarfs the historical source.
    Kripke raises a third difficulty (pp. 95-96).  Suppose a mischievous schoolteacher tells his geometry class that the circle has actually been squared.  At random he picks the name "George Smith" -- a man by that name is actually his next door neighbour -- and says that George Smith squared the circle.  But it does not seem that the students acquire a false belief about the teacher's neighbour, even though the teacher's use of "George Smith" is historically grounded in him.
    Perhaps the teacher has the wrong sort of intention; we might require that the speaker intend to refer to the bearer.  In this example as Kripke seems to have understood it, the teacher did not really intend to refer to his neighbor, even though he may have been peripherally aware that he had borrowed the name from him.  Alternately, suppose the teacher did firmly intend to refer to the neighbor; on that supposition, it seems more plausible to judge that he does make a false statement about the neighbor and that the students acquire the corresponding belief.
    As Kripke says, considerable refinement is needed.  Devitt (1981) offers a fairly well worked-out view that does qualify as a theory rather than only a picture.

    However, here are a few objections that would apply to any version of the Causal-Historical theory as described above.

    Objection 1.  We have been offered the notion of a causal-historical chain leading back in time from our present uses of the name to a ceremony in which an actual individual is named. But how, then, can the Causal-Historical theorist accommodate empty names, names that have no actual bearers?
    Perhaps the best bet here is to exploit the fact that even empty names are introduced to the linguistic community at particular points in time, either through deliberate fiction or through error of one kind or another.  From such an introduction, as Devitt and Donnellan (1974) point out, causal-historical chains begin spreading into the future just as if the name had been bestowed on an actual individual.  So reference or "reference" to nonexistents is by causal-historical chain, but the chain's first link is the naming event itself rather than any putative doings of the nonexistent bearer.<9>

    Objection 2.  Evans (1973) points out that names can change their reference unbeknownst, through mishap or error, but the Causal-Historical theory as presented so far cannot allow for that.  According to Evans,<10>  "Madagascar" originally named, not the great African island, but a portion of the mainland; the change was ultimately due to a misunderstanding of Marco Polo's.  Or:

Two babies are born, and their mothers bestow names upon them.  A nurse inadvertently switches them and the error is never discovered.  It will henceforth undeniably be the case that the man universally known as `Jack' is so called because a woman dubbed some other baby with the name.  (p. 196)

    Objection 3.  We can misidentify the object of a naming ceremony.  Suppose I am seeking a new pet from the Animal Shelter.  I have visited the Shelter several times and noticed an appealing grey tabby; I decide to adopt her.  On my next visit I prepare to name her.  The attendant brings out a tabby of similar appearance and I believe her to be the same one I intend to adopt.  I say, "Here we are again, then, puddy-tat; your name is now `Liz', after the composer Elizabeth Poston, and I'll see you again after you've had all your shots" (tactfully I do not mention the mandatory neutering).  The attendant takes the cat away again.  But unbeknownst to me it was the wrong cat, not my intended pet.  The attendant notices the mistake, without telling me, recovers the right cat, and gives her her shots (etc.).  I pick her up and take her home, naturally calling her "Liz" ever thereafter.
    The problem is of course that my cat was not given that name in any ceremony.  The imposter was given it, even if I had no right to name her.  Yet surely my own cat is the bearer of "Liz," not just after subsequent multiple groundings have been established, but even just after the naming ceremony I did perform.  (It would be different if I had taken the imposter home and continued to call her "Liz.")  The multiple-grounding strategy does not seem to help here.  Rather, what matters is which cat I had in mind and believed I was naming in the ceremony.  (Devitt (section 5.1) speaks of "abilities to designate," construing these as mental states of a certain sophisticated type.)  If so, then repair of the Causal-Historical theory on this point will require a significant foray into the philosophy of mind.

    Objection 4.  People can be categorially mistaken in their beliefs about referents.  Evans cites E.K. Chambers' Arthur of Britain<11> as asserting that King Arthur had a son Anir "whom legend has perhaps confused with his burial place."  A speaker in the grip of the latter confusion might say "Anir must be a green and lovely spot"; the Causal-Historical theory would interpret that sentence as saying that a person (Arthur's son) was a green and lovely spot.  Less dramatically, one might mistake a person for an institution or vice versa.  (A former colleague of mine used to use the name of Emerson Hall -- the building that houses the Harvard philosophy department -- as a way of referring to the department, as in "Emerson Hall isn't going to like this."  A casual hearer might easily have gotten the idea that "Emerson Hall" names a person.)  Or one might mistake a shadow for a live human being and give it a name.  In none of these cases is it plausible to say that subsequent uses of the name in question really refer to the categorially erroneous item.
    Devitt and Sterelny (1987) call this the "qua-problem."  They concede that the celebrant at a naming ceremony, or other person responsible for any of a name's groundings, must not be categorically mistaken and must indeed intend to refer to something of the appropriate category.  This is a mild concession to Descriptivism.

    There are more objections (some of them further ones of Evans').  The majority position seems to be that Kripke initially overreacted to the Descriptivist picture.  He was right to insist that causal-historical chains of some kind are required for referring and that descriptions do not do nearly as much work as Russell or even Searle thought they did; but (as critics, including Kripke himself, maintain) there still are some descriptive conditions as well.  The trick is to move back in the direction of Descriptivism without going so far as even Searle's weak Descriptivist doctrine.  But that does not leave much room in which to maneuver.

9  This move would also help with two similar problems: the names of future individuals ("Let's try to have a baby, and if we succeed its name will be `Kim'"); and the names of abstract objects, such as individual numbers, which have no causal powers.

10  He cites Isaac Taylor's 1898 book, Names and their History: A Handbook of Historical Geography and Topographical Nomenclature (Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1969)).

11  London: Sidgwick & Jackson Ltd., 1927.