African elephants appear to address one another with name-like calls. Researchers in Kenya recorded deep rumbles from wild elephants and trained a machine learning model to predict each call's intended recipient, which it did for 27.5 percent of calls, well above chance. Calls to the same recipient were more similar to each other than calls to different individuals. When researchers played elephants a recording of a call originally meant for them, the animals approached the speaker sooner and vocalised more than when the call was meant for someone else. Unlike dolphins and parrots, elephants do not simply copy the recipient's call, which makes their system more like arbitrary human names.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.