Interesting. Have you never attended a quilt show? Almost all quilts are named at shows. It is how they are identified in the program. Every show entry application I have seen asks for "name of quilt". It is common practice to name a quilt and I don't think it is a recent development. I think that maybe even quilts we refer to by the generic name such as "Baltimore Album" quilt may have it's roots in the original maker naming it that and it just kind of stuck for every quilt after that had similar construction and motifs.

Some quilts just call out a name...