In WPF, what are the differences between the x:Name and Name attributes?
There really is only one name in XAML, the x:Name. A framework, such as WPF, can optionally map one of its properties to XAML's x:Name by using the RuntimeNamePropertyAttribute on the class that designates one of the classes properties as mapping to the x:Name attribute of XAML.
The reason this was done was to allow for frameworks that already have a concept of "Name" at runtime, such as WPF. In WPF, for example, FrameworkElement introduces a Name property.
In general, a class does not need to store the name for x:Name to be useable. All x:Name means to XAML is generate a field to store the value in the code behind class. What the runtime does with that mapping is framework dependent.
So, why are there two ways to do the same thing? The simple answer is because there are two concepts mapped onto one property. WPF wants the name of an element preserved at runtime (which is usable through Bind, among other things) and XAML needs to know what elements you want to be accessible by fields in the code behind class. WPF ties these two together by marking the Name property as an alias of x:Name.
In the future, XAML will have more uses for x:Name, such as allowing you to set properties by referring to other objects by name, but in 3.5 and prior, it is only used to create fields.
Whether you should use one or the other is really a style question, not a technical one. I will leave that to others for a recommendation.
See also AutomationProperties.Name VS x:Name, AutomationProperties.Name is used by accessibility tools and some testing tools.
They are not the same thing.
x:Name is a xaml concept, used mainly to reference elements. When you give an element the x:Name xaml attribute, "the specified x:Name becomes the name of a field that is created in the underlying code when xaml is processed, and that field holds a reference to the object." (MSDN) So, it's a designer-generated field, which has internal access by default.
Name is the existing string property of a FrameworkElement, listed as any other wpf element property in the form of a xaml attribute.
As a consequence, this also means x:Name can be used on a wider range of objects. This is a technique to enable anything in xaml to be referenced by a given name.
x:Name and Name are referencing different namespaces.
x:name is a reference to the x namespace defined by default at the top of the Xaml file.
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
Just saying Name uses the default below namespace.
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
x:Name is saying use the namespace that has the x alias. x is the default and most people leave it but you can change it to whatever you like
xmlns:foo="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
so your reference would be foo:name
Define and Use Namespaces in WPF
OK lets look at this a different way. Say you drag and drop an button onto your Xaml page. You can reference this 2 ways x:name and name. All xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" and xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" are is references to multiple namespaces. Since xaml holds the Control namespace(not 100% on that) and presentation holds the FrameworkElement AND the Button class has a inheritance pattern of:
Button : ButtonBase
ButtonBase : ContentControl, ICommandSource
ContentControl : Control, IAddChild
Control : FrameworkElement
FrameworkElement : UIElement, IFrameworkInputElement,
IInputElement, ISupportInitialize, IHaveResources
So as one would expect anything that inherits from FrameworkElement would have access to all its public attributes. so in the case of Button it is getting its Name attribute from FrameworkElement, at the very top of the hierarchy tree. So you can say x:Name or Name and they will both be accessing the getter/setter from the FrameworkElement.
MSDN Reference
WPF defines a CLR attribute that is consumed by XAML processors in order to map multiple CLR namespaces to a single XML namespace. The XmlnsDefinitionAttribute attribute is placed at the assembly level in the source code that produces the assembly. The WPF assembly source code uses this attribute to map the various common namespaces, such as System.Windows and System.Windows.Controls, to the http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation namespace.
So the assembly attributes will look something like:
PresentationFramework.dll - XmlnsDefinitionAttribute:
[assembly: XmlnsDefinition("http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation", "System.Windows")]
[assembly: XmlnsDefinition("http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation", "System.Windows.Data")]
[assembly: XmlnsDefinition("http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation", "System.Windows.Navigation")]
[assembly: XmlnsDefinition("http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation", "System.Windows.Shapes")]
[assembly: XmlnsDefinition("http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation", "System.Windows.Documents")]
[assembly: XmlnsDefinition("http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation", "System.Windows.Controls")]