The “name” attribute on the “a” element is obsolete. Consider putting an “id” attribute on the nearest container instead.

The name attribute on <a> elements is obsolete in HTML5 and should be replaced with the id attribute.

In older versions of HTML, the name attribute on anchor elements was used to create fragment identifiers — targets you could link to with #section-name in a URL. In HTML5, this approach has been deprecated in favor of the id attribute, which can be placed on any element, not just <a> tags.

Using id is more flexible because you can turn any element into a link target directly, without wrapping it in an anchor. The id attribute works the same way for fragment navigation: a link pointing to #section-name will scroll to the element with id="section-name".

HTML Examples

❌ Obsolete usage with name

<a name="about"></a>
<h2>About Us</h2>
<p>Welcome to our site.</p>

<a href="#about">Go to About</a>

✅ Fixed using id

<h2 id="about">About Us</h2>
<p>Welcome to our site.</p>

<a href="#about">Go to About</a>

The id attribute is placed directly on the <h2> heading, eliminating the need for an empty <a> tag entirely. The #about link works exactly the same way.

Learn more:

MDN Reference

HTML anchor element - MDN

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MDN Reference

HTML id global attribute - MDN

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WHATWG Spec

WHATWG HTML - Text-level semantics

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