When you think of an object in general terms, you think of a "thing." However, in Blender, an Object is more than that. Every Blender object has a center point (the orange dot) where its transforms occur by default. The transforms are: location, rotation and scale.

Look at the default scene and notice an orange outline around the Cube–this means the Cube is selected. Also notice the red, green and blue arrows on the Cube; this is the Transform gizmo (or "transform manipulator"). It's currently set to Grab mode (move mode in Blender). The white circle is part of this gizmo. Next, notice the red and white circle with four black lines; this is the 3D Cursor (we'll discuss in another tutorial). Finally, notice the orange dot in the middle of the Cube. This is the object's center point where the transforms occur by default, which is why the transform gizmo is centered there by default (Figure 1).

With RMB, select the Camera and notice its orange dot isn't actually at the center, but notice the transform gizmo originates at the center point by default (Figure 2).

With RMB, select the light (called a Lamp in Blender) and notice its center point. Again, the transform gizmo originates at the orange dot (Figure 3).

These are a few of the different types of Blender objects. Select the Cube again with the RMB. Then, hit "N" to bring up the Properties panel. At the top, in the Item section, notice "Cube" in the field (Figure 4). This is the object name field, and it refers to the selected object (more specifically the active object).

If you select this field and type in a different name, you will have just changed the object name for the cube.