To begin, there are these gods/deities in the universe that have just finished creating a world, and they are quarreling amongst each other because nothing in the world was named yet. So the deities decide to either A) create a boy, or B) assign a boy in the newly created world the task of naming everything for them. Thus, the boy goes on many adventures traveling to distant places and giving names to everything. It may sound similar to the Little Prince in the fact that the boy does a lot of traveling to distant places (from what I remember). So in a sense, it is like a version of the story in Genesis of the Bible, except Adam is a boy. However, I know for sure it is NOT the Little Prince! Also, it is NOT the Neverending Story.

So for example, if the boy came across an object or creature, he would ask the gods “What is this called?” and they would respond something like “That’s up to you to decide” along those lines.

I wish I could recall character names or author. The author could have had influence or have been inspired by foreign creation stories/myths/legends (Indian/Arabic, possibly Greek/Persian/Chinese?), so the names might have been unusual/unique.

It seemed like a book aimed for children, yet it was fairly thick and was a chapter book. The copy I had was a hardback may have had a dust jacket, color was off-white with decent spine thickness ((roughly 5/5.5 x 8″ dimensions, about .5″ thick). It was published before 1998, and could be from any decade before the 90s. On the cover featured an image of the boy looking down on a cloud, with short black hair, (his eyes are looking downward) with a celestial background – stars, *maybe* moon also. Again, it is definitely NOT the Little Prince or Neverending Story.

I know it exists and it’s out there! If this reminds you of any title, please help!