Throughout history, humans seem to have formed special bonds with particular trees.The purposes and functions of these relationships vary greatly, with the roles of thetrees ranging from landmarks to healing and sacrificial trees. An important step inmanifesting the individuation of a specific tree is to give it a name. For example, a treewhere travellers stop to have a drink may be called Suptallen, ‘the booze pine’. Namesof this kind, together with the narratives that frame them are the focus of this study.Based on archival material found at The Institute for language and folklore (Isof), thenames and narratives of six trees are discussed in detail. All the trees selected for analy-sis are pine and oak trees, these being the most common species among named trees inSweden. The analysis shows that the main reason for the predominance of pine and oakto be named is that trees of both species tend to develop conspicuous features duringtheir long lives, and that they furthermore often remain long-standing after their death.The study moreover shows that the names and narratives complement one another byproviding different aspects of knowledge about the named trees, and that both thenames and the narratives contribute to a better understanding of our relationship tothese trees.