Name Names Meaning

(idiomatic) To identify specific people, especially people involved in confidential activity, misdeeds, or crimes.

Example: 1820, Sir Walter Scott, The Monastery, ch. 24:
  "Prithee, peace, man," said Avenel; "what need of naming names, so we understand each other?"
1918, Henry Blake Fuller, On the Stairs, ch. 3:
  They named names—names which I shall not record here.
1953 May 25, "West Germany: Panthers in the Streets," Time:
  He named names; the whole gang was rounded up, and all were sentenced to two years in reform school.
2008 May 18, Clark Hoyt, "Journalism From the Bottom of the Boat ," New York Times (retrieved 16 June 2011):
  Sometimes it is not the journalist who is in peril but the subject of a story, and naming names can leave both the reporter and the reader uneasy.