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Putting some code through the html5 validator, I get this:

Warning: The name attribute on the a element is obsolete. Consider putting an id attribute on the nearest container instead.

I find that unclear. Is the "nearest container" for an anchor link the a itself, so that the correct code would be <a id='blah'> instead of <a name='blah'>? Or are empty placeholder <a> tags as a whole deprecated, and anchors can simply point to any element with an id instead?

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2 Answers

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[A]re empty placeholder tags as a whole deprecated, and anchors can simply point to any element with an id instead?

I prefer to jump users to heading tags (following MediaWiki's default behavior) where in-page links are needed, but yes, you could address the ID of any element.

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If you need to jump users to in-page links, you can set the id attribute (which is used for more than just in-page links) on any element. Then use the usual # in the URL of a href attribute of an a element. Here's an example:

<body>
    <p>Despite the many
        <a href="#gum-benefits">benefits</a>
    you may experience while chewing gum, there are also many drawbacks,
    especially with 
        <a href="http://www.example.org/sugar.html#cons">non-sugarless</a>
    gum.</p>
    ...
    <section id="gum-benefits">
        <h1>Benefits of Gum Chewing</h1>
        ...
    </section>
</body>

When writing my own pages, I like to give an id to each <section> tag (HTML5), even if I don't plan on using it. You can achieve the same effect by assigning ids to <h1> (etc) tags.

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Typo in code example: "#gum-benefits needs a closing quote mark. – Basil Bourque Dec 6 '12 at 11:41
@BasilBourque Thanks for catching the typo. I fixed it. – TestSubject528491 Dec 7 '12 at 5:46

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