Names That Reach the Root
When Adam named the animals, he saw the root of each creature in the upper worlds and gave it the name that belongs to it there.
The Torah says that whatever Adam called each living creature, "that was its name." The Midrash relates that the angels could not name the animals, but Adam could, and he even named Hashem, Ado-noi, Master of all. The Noam Elimelech asks why the verse needs to tell us that the name he gave was its name. He answers that Adam was not inventing labels. He looked at each creature and saw its root in the upper world, and he directed his mind to call it by the very name that its root carries above. The Rebbe draws a lesson for tefillah: each word of praise belongs to a world of its own, and a person who learns to know those worlds can daven from the root, as Adam named from the root.
Source: Noam Elimelech, Bereishis, Lech Lecha (on Bereishis 2:19); Bereishis Rabbah 17:4
In davening, words can easily become sounds. Choose one word you say every day, such as "Baruch" or "Ado-noi," and before you say it next, stop for a breath and think of what it means: blessed, Master of everything. Do the same, once today, with a person: instead of calling him by a label in your mind, look for the good at his root and name that to yourself. Adam saw what each creature truly was, and you can practise the same kind of seeing.