A variety of com.sun.source.tree.Tree's represent names as Name objects. The SourcePositions class has a way to find source positions for Tree's, but not for Name's. See for instance ClassTree.

For instance, an Audit program that gives errors in the editor for source code would sometimes like to underline the name of something if it's in error. That Audit program now has to lex the source to attempt to find the position of that name. Instead, it should be available through the com.sun.source.tree.Tree API.