To make the experiment easy to repeat, say after the patch, I wrote this. (Perhaps inspired by Ned Batchelder's 'machete debugging' PyCon talk.) import tkinter as tk from idlelib.configdialog import ConfigDialog _realsetup = tk.BaseWidget._setup def _wrapsetup(self, master, cnf): _realsetup(self, master, cnf) print(self.widgetName, self._w) tk.BaseWidget._setup = _wrapsetup root = tk.Tk() ConfigDialog(roo) ttk.BaseWidget._setup = _realsetup Observations: the longest path rather long: .<num1>.....<num9>. The root to widget paths collectively represent a tree and, sorted, could be used to populate a tree widget, such as a Treeview. With the proposed new names, this would give one a useful overview of the total gui, or a part thereof. If one subclasses a widget, such as class MyFrame(Frame, would the instance .widgetName used in the patch 'Frame' or 'MyFrame'? The latter would make the treeview really useful, and reward judicious subclassing.