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Each buffer has a unique name, which is a string. Many of the functions that work on buffers accept either a buffer or a buffer name as an argument. Any argument called BUFFER-OR-NAME is of this sort. Any argument called BUFFER must be an actual buffer object, not a name.
The buffer file name is the name of the file that is visited in that buffer. When a buffer is not visiting a file, its buffer file name is ‘nil’. Most of the time, the buffer name is the same as the nondirectory part of the buffer file name, but the buffer file name and the buffer name are distinct and can be set independently.