[Answers](https://scrapfly.io/blog)   /  [xpath](https://scrapfly.io/blog/tag/xpath)   /  [How to get the name of an HTML element in XPath?](https://scrapfly.io/blog/answers/how-to-get-name-of-selected-element-in-xpath)   # How to get the name of an HTML element in XPath?

 by [Bernardas Alisauskas](https://scrapfly.io/blog/author/bernardas) Apr 19, 2023 1 min read [\#xpath](https://scrapfly.io/blog/tag/xpath) 

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To get the name of the selected element in XPath the `name()` function can be used. This function returns the name of the closest element in the current context.

The `name()` function is useful in HTML parsing in broad selection cases like selecting multiple names. See this interactive example:

<!-- select all links by selecting the @href attributes --> <article> <p>paragraph 1</p> <a>link 1</a> <p>paragraph 2</p> <script>some script data</script> <p>paragraph 3</p> </article> Above, we're selecting only paragraph and link elements by using wildcard match (the `*` symbol) and a `name()` matching predicate.



 

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