Saul Kripke (Lecture 1) [Rigo Acevedo]

"Surely not: if Hesperus had been hit earlier by a comet, it might have been visible at a different position at that time. In such a counterfactual situation we would sat that Hesperus would not have occupied that position, but not that Hesperus would not have been Hesperus. The reason is that 'Hesperus' rigidly designates a certain heavenly body and 'the body in yonder position' does not- a different body, or no body might have been Hesperus (though another body, not Hesperus, might have been called 'Hesperus'). Indeed, as I have said, I will hold that names are always rigid designators," (Kripke, p58)

Here Kripke gives an example of why he believes that names function as rigid designators, thus acting to refer directly to an object. He uses the idea of 'other worlds' to argue that using descriptions to refer to individuals becomes useless if anything about that individual were changed, or if anything else within another world, or even within our own world, matched a set of given descriptions. We would lose our ability to identify objects with certainty.
I like how Kripke's account of names considers situations that allow us to identify that some properties of an object are not necessary to its identity.

"If we used that as a definition, the name 'Aristotle' is to mean 'the greatest man who studied with Plato'. Then of course in some other possible world that man might not have studied with Plato and some other man would have been Aristotle. Of, on the other hand, we merely use the description to fix the referent then that man will be the referent of 'Aristotle' in all possible worlds. The only use of the description will have been to pick out which man we mean to refer." (Kripke, p57)

This is another example that expands upon Kirpke's argument that names act as rigid designators to their respective objects, but he also brings up the function of descriptions. Here Kripke states that he believes that descriptions are only useful when attempting to identify an object, to "fix the referent", but is not successful as an appropriate definition given that had anything been different about that object, or if anything else currently also possessed a similar description, then that description would be useless in defining that object.
I am a bit confused by this section of Kripke's argument, and other sections like it; here Kripke seems to acknowledge that descriptions aid in the identification of an object, though they are not necessary. This seems to imply that descriptions do perform some significant function in our references to objects in everyday life, however Kripke seems to sweep this consideration aside in his argument.