Document: getElementsByName() method

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 getElementsByName() method of the Document object returns a NodeList Collection of elements with a given name attribute in the document.

Syntax

getElementsByName(name)

Parameters

name: The value of the name attribute of the element(s) we are looking for.

Return value

A live NodeList collection, meaning it automatically updates as new elements with the same name are added to, or removed from, the document.

Examples

html

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <title>Example: using document.getElementsByName</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <input type="hidden" name="up" />
    <input type="hidden" name="down" />
  </body>
</html>

const up_names = document.getElementsByName("up");
console.log(up_names[0].tagName); // displays "INPUT"

Notes

The name attribute can only be applied in (X)HTML documents.

The returned NodeList Collection contains all elements with the given name, such as <meta>, <object>, and even elements which do not support the name attribute at all.

Specifications

Specification
HTML Standard # dom-document-getelementsbyname-dev

Browser compatibility

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