Giving names for pictures of familiar objects to nursery school children improves their later recognition of those pictures. This improvement occurs even though the children can easily name the pictures when asked. The present research eliminated the sufficiency of several possible explanations. The names might have provided a response to rehearse and consequently use to differentiate the recognition alternatives. But this explanation is insufficient since names help even for recognition tests containing distractors with the same names as the correct pictures. Names might have helped by providing specific retrieval cues. The child could then use this general knowledge in analyzing and storing specific characteristics. This explanation is insufficient since grossly incongruous descriptions help recognition as do appropriate labels or descriptions. It seems that under these conditions any description which is itself meaningful stimulates a young child to more actively analyze and store accompanying pictures. The extreme non-specificity of this effect suggests caution in attributing labeling effects to specific characteristics associated with the label. (Author/RG)