HTMLMetaElement: name property

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.

The HTMLMetaElement.name property is used in combination with HTMLMetaElement.content to define the name-value pairs for the metadata of a document. The name attribute defines the metadata name and the content attribute defines the value.

Value

A string.

Examples

Reading the metadata name of a meta element

The following example queries the first <meta> element in a document. The name value is logged to the console, showing that keywords have been specified for the document:

js
// given <meta name="keywords" content="documentation, HTML, web technologies">
const meta = document.querySelector("meta");
console.log(meta.name);
// "keywords"

Creating a meta element with author metadata

The following example creates a new <meta> element with a name attribute set to author. The content attribute sets the author of the document and the element is appended to the document <head>:

js
let meta = document.createElement("meta");
meta.name = "author";
meta.content = "Franz Kafka";
document.head.appendChild(meta);

Specifications

Specification

HTML
# dom-meta-name

Browser compatibility

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This page was last modified on Jun 11, 2025 by MDN contributors.

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